On Mon, Dec 17, 2001 at 09:20:09PM -0800, Patrick Powell wrote: > What BENEFIT is there in doing this? > > First, you get all enthusiastic about security... and permissions... > and then you discover that you have to run your clients SETUID root... > Otherwise any program can connect to your UNIX socket... > and then you get unenthusiastic again. I hate testing security. > Beating the TCP/IP stuff to the ground was bad enough. Err, no it doesn't have to be setuid root.
postgresql has a unix socket and, as far as I can tell, doesn't have setuid root program. I cannot see why you want to restrict who can connect to the unix socket; I have this program called telnet that can cicumvent lpr on the TCP/IP socket. If you do want to restrict, why not make it setgid something instead. The point is that people need lpd to print to their printer. They don't need a TCP/IP socket open usually. Of course some people do need it, just like they need remote postgresql connections. But if there is no TCP/IP socket, there is no son of ramen worm problem for that box. > The overhead difference in using TCP/IP over a UNIX domain socket > in most systems is trivial. In fact, some systems FAKE sockets Exactly, you wouldn't do it for this unless you were a speed freak. Or you wanted to waste your time. > And while you can get the 'local' benefit of 'knowing who the user > is' at the local level, when you send to a remote site, you lose Which, postgresql uses. I don't know how clever it is but it does know, or thinks it knows, the uid of the local user. Having a local Unix socket assists the security of 'this box', not the 'box over there'. At the moment you have no choice, its either printing and TCP/IP socket or neither of them. > this... unless, of course, you use encryption. And now you need > end to end encryption/authentication. Or trust tranference. Yes, then you end up in the evil world of kerberos and friends. - Craig -- Craig Small VK2XLZ GnuPG:1C1B D893 1418 2AF4 45EE 95CB C76C E5AC 12CA DFA5 Eye-Net Consulting http://www.eye-net.com.au/ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> MIEEE <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Debian developer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- YOU MUST BE A LIST MEMBER IN ORDER TO POST TO THE LPRNG MAILING LIST The address you post from MUST be your subscription address If you need help, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] (or lprng-requests or lprng-digest-requests) with the word 'help' in the body. For the impatient, to subscribe to a list with name LIST, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with: | example: subscribe LIST <mailaddr> | subscribe lprng-digest [EMAIL PROTECTED] unsubscribe LIST <mailaddr> | unsubscribe lprng [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have major problems, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word LPRNGLIST in the SUBJECT line. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
