Re: bash_history to track users

[jrd () gerdesas com]

Perhaps I am missing something here, but wouldn't modifying bash to syslog the
activities be a little more secure in the long run?  Especially if re-directing
syslog entries to an external syslog server and not keeping them on the local,
shell accessible boxes.  

It would also not be much more difficult then just logging to files.





                                                        John

In previous mail, Sebastian Hans spouted...
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> Jack Whitsitt (jofny) wrote:
> > > The ONLY thing this would useful for is being able to backtrack a  clue=
> -less user.  A
> > > malicious user with clue will do what he wants and  then go hand edit t=
> he bash history.
> > > After all, it's in his home
> > > directory and he owns it.
> > =20
> > That's not entirely accurate. It's fairly easy to modify bash to log this=
>  file elsewhere...and
> > it should not be much harder to have it log to two locations with differe=
> nt permissions...
>
> But not too different. The user must still have write access. Otherwise,
> how would the shell write to it? If the shell can write to it, so can
> the user. Anyway, what if the user has more than one instance running?
> =2Ebash_history only has the history of one instance. Or tcsh? Or any
> other shell for that matter?
>
> > Without hacking the code, though, I suppose you can write a script to par=
> se the output of "w"
> > and have it add items as they change.
>
> But this only catches
> (1) the foreground process, not processes running in the background
>     (you could parse the output of ps instead) and
> (2) processes that are running while you are doing the w (or ps). Some
>     could slip through.
>
> Seb
> --=20
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