Re: why doesn't tcpdump drop privileges?

[Pekka Savola <pekkas () netcore fi>]

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Andrew Pimlott wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 21, 2004 at 08:05:27AM +0200, Pekka Savola wrote:
> > As for why I went for "pcap" instead of nobody in the first place..  
> > Red Hat bundles tcpdump with arpwatch, which I also coded to drop root
> > privileges.  Picking a specific user name for these two purposes
> > seemed only logical. (Arpwatch has to maintain a couple of files owned
> > by 'pcap' as well.)
>
> I agree that picking a new user for this purpose is a sound choice.
> However, if this user owns files (especially ones that might be run
> or otherwise used by root), it seems to defeat the purpose.

The file (arp.dat) required to be writable by arpwatch is not 
executable, so this is not a big worry.

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings

-
This is the TCPDUMP workers list. It is archived at
http://www.tcpdump.org/lists/workers/index.html
To unsubscribe use mailto:tcpdump-workers-request () tcpdump org?body=unsubscribe