setgid ssh-agent

Károly Arnhoffer
Thu, 16 Apr 2015 18:58:42 -0000

Hi,

As I can see OpenSSH's ssh-agent is not setgid as it is for example in all
the Linux distributions I know.

They say ssh-agent is needed to be setgid to a group that owns nothing so that
it can be safe from ptrace. It seems to me that ptrace is functionally the same
in FreeBSD as well, even thoug, ssh-agent is not setgid.
Some links about the topic:
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/141082/why-ssh-agent-group-ownership-is-not-root
http://serverfault.com/questions/290920/why-does-ssh-agent-have-sgid-set
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.debian.devel.ssh/59

In my FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE the stock ssh-agent is owned by root:wheel and not
setgid.

Why?

Thanks!
Karoly