Matthew Weigel <unique <at> idempot.net> writes: > Then you have grown your userbase too fast with a terrible setup, and now > you're caught in the middle of fixing the problem or avoiding downtime.
Are you sure this is not a misunderstanding? When you host user accounts, on a tight, default, setup of OpenBSD (or any other OS), and allow them to ftp into their web-directories, how could one prevent them from uploading code that mail()-s something? Aside of removing mini_sendmail, that is. > Sure, if you go through and find every line of code where mail() is called, > you can add logging at that point. But so far you've refused to make any > changes to the applications. Are you sure that this is not a misunderstanding? Which sysadmin can 'make changes to the applications' that his 200+ users run?? > His idea is the right one. Most PHP applications I've dealt with support, at > least through plugins or extensions, SMTP + AUTH for sending mail instead of > PHP's mail(). Are you sure that this is not a misunderstanding? If you host, for example, any CMS, it should have the functionality to the remote user, registered with that CMS, to request a password reset. Which SMTP+AUTH do you want to use here?? AFAICS, here we need to allow a straightforward SMTP. The userbase is registered in the various databases of the CMSes. And again, no sysadmin will re-write all user-supplied applications to extract all those remote users for SMTP-authentication. Get real, please! > > The only two places where I, IMHO, can see a chance would be with an > > extended > > log or check of Apache or php; whenever a mail-call is logged, from > > which directory, e.g. > > I don't think PHP ever changes the working directly except explicitly; > probably every call to mail() (which leads to mini_sendmail) occurs in the > chroot /. Exactly. So how to log it?? > > Yes. But that's a complete coder's work, isn't it? I wonder if there is no > > other solution, as mentioned above. > > There are, but they require you to set the parameters of how web apps can work > in your environment so as to enforce a minimum of auditability. Yes, this is the crucial point. I'd be more than happy to learn how to set this, for example in php.ini! Any suggestion will be appreciated! > sendmail_path = "/bin/mini_sendmail > > -t -i" > > is what I have in php.ini. I wonder, if there are no logging features for > > mini_sendmail or so. I read the man-page online, but didn't see any. > > Well, mini_sendmail is an external package... talk to the authors about that, > but I think they'll tell you they can't really track what you need tracked. So, how to solve the problem, then?? Thanks anyway, Uwe
