Bugtraq mailing list archives

Re: User operator under Red Hat 6.2


From: Kurt Seifried <listuser () seifried org>
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 17:02:43 -0600

It's not necessesary a bug but is abig problem when you install Red Hat
6.2 and one
user different to root has guid root, even worse if you don't know it.

User: operator
Home : /root (oops! same home than root, same bash history!)
Main group: root

(May be you find usefully operator user but may be you must change its
home,
 also you must think about that in a dictionary attack there are two roots
to find)

If you find some PAM message with a remote change password to operator
becarefull, may you must look for in root history not-normal activity

Have a nice IT day

Diego GarcĂ­a

Argh. Also in Red Hat 7.0:

uid=11(operator) gid=0(root) groups=0(root)

Using find, I couldn't find any files owned by operator, using grep I
couldn't find anything in etc that mentioned the operator user (beyond the
password files). It appears safe to remove the user:

userdel operator

At least nothing has broken so far =). Gratuitous root acounts are rather
annoying. Red Hat 7.0 also ships sudo, so there's a better solution
available.

Kurt Seifried - seifried () securityportal com
SecurityPortal, your focal point for security on the net.
http://www.securityportal.com/


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