Adduser devel - Jan 2005 - Bug#290623: adduser should never use "nogroup" as a user''s group

Package: adduser
Version: 3.59
Severity: normal

adduser should never use "nogroup" as the group for a user by default.
The reason nobody and nogroup exists is so that processes can be sure of
having no special access to the file system.  For this to work there
musn''t be anything in the file system with uid/gid set to either.
With system users in nogroup it''s easy for files to be created with
nogroup as their group, and though they usually won''t be group
writable,
it''s asking for trouble, with no benefit.

If USERGROUPS is set then system users should get their own unique groups,
just like regular users, and for the same reasons.

If USERGROUPS isn''t set then system users should be put in a group
created
for just this purpose (perhaps "sysuser"), rather than using nogroup.

-- 
Roderick Schertler
roderick@argon.org

On Samstag 15 Januar 2005, you wrote:
> Package: adduser
> Version: 3.59
> Severity: normal
>
> adduser should never use "nogroup" as the group for a user by
default.
> The reason nobody and nogroup exists is so that processes can be sure of
> having no special access to the file system.  For this to work there
> musn''t be anything in the file system with uid/gid set to either.
> With system users in nogroup it''s easy for files to be created
with
> nogroup as their group, and though they usually won''t be group
writable,
> it''s asking for trouble, with no benefit.
In my opinion any package who wants to use an unprivileged user
("nouser") or
group ("nogroup") should create a separate user for that usage (see
the
www-data user for httpd). In any other way there maybe conflicts/security 
implications when 2 processes are there with with privileges dropped and now 
using "nouser:nogroup".

Joerg

-- 
What did you do to the cat? It looks half-dead. -Schroedinger''s wife
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tags 290623 +wontfix
thanks

On Sun, Jun 24, 2007 at 11:56:31AM +0200, Joerg Hoh
wrote:
> 
> In my opinion any package who wants to use an unprivileged user
("nouser") or
> group ("nogroup") should create a separate user for that usage
(see the
> www-data user for httpd). In any other way there maybe conflicts/security 
> implications when 2 processes are there with with privileges dropped and
now
> using "nouser:nogroup".
I''ll tag it as wontfix.

J?rg

-- 
What did you do to the cat? It looks half-dead. -Schroedinger''s wife
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