----- Original Message ----
From: John Summerfield <[email protected]>
To: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (Tikanga) discussion mailing-list 
<[email protected]>
Sent: Wed, October 21, 2009 10:03:59 PM
Subject: Re: [rhelv5-list] RHEL 5.2 - Winbind and pam.d/su restrictions

Matthew J. Salerno wrote:
> 5.2 x86_64
> Samba: samba-3.0.28-0.el5.8
> PAM: pam-0.99.6.2-3.27.el5
> 
> The server is successfully joined to AD and AD users can log in with no 
> issues.� The issue I am having has to do with the su command.� I want to 
> allow only a handful of groups to be able to use the su command.� I updated 
> the /etc/pam/su as shown below, but I am getting the following error in my 
> secure log: 
> su: pam_listfile(su-l:auth): Refused user root for service su-l
> 
> getent group/passwd are both working and sudo works with the groups as well, 
> just not pam_listfile.so.� What's worse is that if I remove the line with 
> the�pam_listfile.so and use pam_wheel and specify the domain group, it 
> works.� So by deduction, the issue has to�be with the pam_listfile.so module 
> config.� I know that I cannot be the only one who has run into this.�Also, 
> this fails for local users in the wheel group.
> 
> If I add the root group, it looks like every user can su, so there is no gain.
> 
> Does anyone have an alternative or see an error in my config?
> 

I've not willingly used su since I discovered sudo some years ago, and sudo is 
the standard way of controlling privileged access on ubuntu and Mac OS X.

I think the model where every administrator has to know the root password is 
flawed. By default, sudo requires a user's own password, and it's somewhat 
configurable as to what users can do, and importantly to you, rules are readily 
applied to users in particular groups. For example, I have a couple of CGI 
scripts that can update firewall rules. Sudo allows the web server to run the 
scripts without a password, but other users cannot use them to update the 
firewall, unless they're in a group with that privilege.




-- 
Cheers
John

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I completely agree with your statement.  The plan is to go with sudo but block 
su.  Multi-user machine, everyone has access to "su -", I only want admins to 
be able to use it if absolutely needed.  If nobody is watching the security 
logs, what's to stop a brute force password cracking script from trying to get 
the root password?  Sure policies and procedures should be able to prevent it - 
Log monitoring, root passwd changed every 30 days, etc. but I feel that locking 
down su is just as important, and I know I can't be the only one.


      

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