On Wed, Jan 17, 2001 at 10:28:22AM +0000, David Malone wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 17, 2001 at 12:18:42AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > Why is crontab suid root?
> >
> > I say to myself "To update /var/cron/tabs/ and to signal cron".
> >
> > Could crontab run suid 'cron'?
> >
> > If those are the only two things it needs to do, run cron as
> > gid 'cron' and make /var/cron/tabs/ group writable by 'cron'.
>
> I'm not sure how much this would help. Being able to write arbitary
> crontabs is eqivelent to root access. Making a user or group who
> can write cron jobs is almost equivelent to adding a second root
> user. It would probably be better to spend the time looking at the
> crontab source code for risky bits of code.
>
> (I guess it provides some protection in the case where you are
> making the crontab user read files it shouldn't. If you can make
> it write files it shouldn't then you're getting into the root
> equivelent area).
Currently crontab only allows you to change others' files if you
specify the -u option, which in turn is only allowed if you already
are the superuser.
..or did you mean some kind of unintended/faulty behavior? Yes,
running crontab setgid does open a window of opportunity for errors,
but no more, I think, than running it setuid, as it currently is.
G'luck,
Peter
--
Hey, out there - is it *you* reading me, or is it someone else?
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