On Fri, Feb 02, 2001 at 04:27:52PM +0300, Vasily Korytov wrote:
> Hello Magus,
> 
> > I have a question about /etc/passwd...
> 
> > I typically go thru and put a * in all accounts except for 'root' and change
> > the shell to '/bin/false' when I first setup a box, to make sure the account
> > cannot be logged into. Is there a specific reason why this is not done? Are
> > there any implications I just haven't noticed about doing this? Am I just
> > retarded and missing something obvious? It doesn't seem to break anything
> > when I do that, but thought I'd ask for someone else's input/opinion.
> 
> No `su user -c' can be done with invalid shell.

actually su user -c does not work with the shell set to /bin/false or
/bin/true.  however su -s /bin/sh user works.  

btw changing nobody's shell to /bin/false will cause your locate
database to never be run since updatelocatedb uses su nobody -c.  you
can cheat by changing the --localuser option in /etc/cron.daily to
--localuser='-s /bin/sh nobody' 

but i don't think bogus shells really adds much security, other then
perhaps being caught by pam_shells.so which will reject logins to
accounts with a shell not listed in /etc/shells.  

-- 
Ethan Benson
http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/

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