[Search for users] [Overall Top Noters] [List of all Conferences] [Download this site]

Conference turris::digital_unix

Title:DIGITAL UNIX(FORMERLY KNOWN AS DEC OSF/1)
Notice:Welcome to the Digital UNIX Conference
Moderator:SMURF::DENHAM
Created:Thu Mar 16 1995
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:10068
Total number of notes:35879

10004.0. "root permissions on T4.0D-1" by WONDER::REILLY (Sean Reilly, Alpha Servers, DTN 223-4375) Fri May 30 1997 13:02

    
    I just upgraded to T4.0D-1 (PTmin BL7 EFT1) from X4.0D-4
    (PTmin BL4) and am having some strange permission problems.
    
    Why is root having problems creating files in user directories
    or reading files in user directories?  
    
    Did a miss a release note or did my install go bad (this
    can't be proper behavior)?
    
    - Sean
    
    ========================================================
    
    hbnero_reilly(89)> rlogin avspg7 -l root
    Last login: Fri May 30 11:43:25 from hbnero.eng.pko.d
    
    Digital UNIX T4.0D-1  (Rev. 738.1); Fri May 30 10:32:11 EDT 1997
    
    On Wed May 28 10:02:14 EDT 1997 your system was successfully updated from:
       Digital UNIX X4.0D-4  [Rev. 667]; Tue Apr  8 13:55:14 EDT 1997
    
    You have mail.
    Fri May 30 11:54:51 EDT 1997
    avspg7_root(97)> cd ~reilly
    avspg7_root(98)> pwd
    /avscl/users/reilly
    avspg7_root(99)> ls -aFlsg
    total 158
      1 drwxr-xr-x   8 reilly   users        512 Apr  2 10:57 ./
      1 drwxr-xr-x   6 root     users        512 Feb 25 16:09 ../
      1 -rw-------   1 reilly   users        368 Oct 26  1995 .Xauthority
      5 -rw-r--r--   1 reilly   users       4987 May 15 13:01 .cshrc
      2 -rwx------   1 reilly   users       1450 May 30 11:43 .history*
      3 -rw-r--r--   1 reilly   users       2534 Apr 14 11:21 .login
      1 -rw-r-----   1 reilly   users         69 Oct 26  1995 .mh_profile
      2 -rwxr--r--   1 reilly   users       1902 Nov 21  1995 .rhosts*
      1 drwx------   4 reilly   users        512 Feb 28 12:10 Mail/
      1 drwxr-xr-x   2 reilly   users       1024 Apr  2 14:36 bin/
      1 drwxr-xr-x   4 reilly   users        512 Feb 25 16:09 info/
      1 drwxr-xr-x   5 reilly   users        512 Feb 25 16:09 man/
      1 drwxr-xr-x   2 reilly   users        512 Feb 25 16:09 scrap/
      1 drwxr-xr-x   3 reilly   users        512 Feb 25 16:09 tools/
    avspg7_root(100)> touch x.x
    touch: x.x cannot create
    avspg7_root(102)>  ls Mail
    Mail: Permission denied
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
DateLines
10004.1DECWET::MARTINFri May 30 1997 15:4533
Ummm.... is it possible that /avscl/users/reilly is NFS-mounted?  If it is, and
the exporting host doesn't give root permissions, that would explain the problem
you're seeing.

I just ran a quick check myself, and got:

>>sherwd:/advfs_resource/LAT===- rlogin lister -l root
Password:
Last login: Tue May 27 16:42:04 from sherwd.zso.dec.c

Digital UNIX T4.0D-1  (Rev. 738.1); Tue May 27 16:23:47 PDT 1997 

.
.
.

lister:/# cd ~martin
lister:/usr/staff5/martin# ls -al
total 16
8 drwxr-xr-x   2 martin   staff       8192 May 27 16:33 ./
8 drwxr-xr-x   4 root     system      8192 May 27 16:33 ../
lister:/usr/staff5/martin# whoami
root
lister:/usr/staff5/martin# df .
Filesystem      512-blocks        Used   Available Capacity  Mounted on
usr_domain#usr     1048576      702066      314464    70%    /usr
lister:/usr/staff5/martin# touch foo
lister:/usr/staff5/martin# ls -al
total 16
8 drwxr-xr-x   2 martin   staff       8192 May 30 11:44 ./
8 drwxr-xr-x   4 root     system      8192 May 27 16:33 ../
0 -rw-r--r--   1 root     staff          0 May 30 11:44 foo
lister:/usr/staff5/martin# 
10004.2WONDER::REILLYSean Reilly, Alpha Servers, DTN 223-4375Fri May 30 1997 16:4313
    
    Yup, this was it, sort of...
    
    /avscl was and ASE NFS service.  By default, -r=0 is not
    added to the 3rd level ASE exports file in /etc and, as
    such, I got this behavior.
    
    Using asemgr to edit in -r=0 solves the problem.
    
    Is -r=0 a bad idea, though?  I do want root to be superuser,
    even on the ASE NFS services.
    
    - Sean
10004.3DECWET::MARTINFri May 30 1997 20:267
-r=0 is a bad idea if there is any chance that someone you don't trust has root
access on any node that could mount this filesystem.

It opens up a potential security problem, but if there's a restricted hostlist,
or you're within a firewall/not on a WAN, you should be OK.

--Ken