Article View: comp.mail.sendmail
Article #2913Re: Non-root sendmail?
From: Greg Lindahl
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 1988 16:44
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 1988 16:44
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1673 bytes
In article <3031@haven.umd.edu> louie@trantor.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos) writes: >sendmail runs as root for the rather obvious reason that it needs to bind >a socket to a restricted port number (25 == SMTP). Before sendmail exec()'s >any processes, it does a setuid() to UID 1, which is daemon. None of the >virus processes running on our system ran as root; rather they ran as >daemon. > Is there any reason why sendmail has to run as the same "daemon" which owns the files generated by the "at" command? This is unfortunate, because anyone who can break sendmail and get a suid daemon shell can (according to a friend of mine) then generate an "at" command and go edit the command file to have root execute the command. This allows you to generate a root suid shell. Shouldn't we be glad that our friendly virus didn't know this :-) Why are these daemons the same? -- greg ---------- Greg Lindahl internet: gl8f@virginia.edu University of Virginia Department of Astronomy bitnet: gl8f@virginia.bitnet "grad students don't need disclaimers; the department doen't care what I think"
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arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!hubcap!gatech!uflorida!haven!uvaarpa!hudson!bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU!gl8fReferences:
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!hubcap!gatech!uflorida!haven!uvaarpa!hudson!bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU!gl8f From: gl8f@bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail Subject: Re: Non-root sendmail? Message-ID: <756@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> Date: 11 Nov 88 16:44:44 GMT References: <164@heart-of-gold> <3031@haven.umd.edu> Sender: news@hudson.acc.virginia.edu Reply-To: gl8f@bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) Organization: Dept. of Astronomy, University of Virginia Lines: 24