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  • Contemporary messages sorted: [ by date ] [ by thread ] [ by subject ] [ by author ]
From: Russell Coker <russell_at_coker.com.au>
subject: su etc
Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 22:18:03 +0100
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  • Reply: Stephen Smalley: "Re: su etc"


At the moment I'm trying to compile the shadow password programs from Julianne Frances Haugh (as used in Debian for /bin/login and friends) with SE support.

I've got login almost working (I think) but haven't tested it yet (anyone who's interested in seeing what I'm doing please contact me off the list - I'm not publishing untested patches).

I'm now thinking about what to do with su. Should su change the security of the tty with chsid() before spawning a new shell and then change it back afterwards as login does? Or is there some difference in the way that su and login work that requires some different code?

--

http://www.coker.com.au/bonnie++/     Bonnie++ hard drive benchmark
http://www.coker.com.au/postal/       Postal SMTP/POP benchmark
http://www.coker.com.au/projects.html Projects I am working on
http://www.coker.com.au/~russell/     My home page

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From: Stephen Smalley <sds_at_tislabs.com>
subject: Re: su etc
Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 09:07:35 -0500 (EST)
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  • In reply to: Russell Coker: "su etc"

On Sat, 22 Dec 2001, Russell Coker wrote:

> I'm now thinking about what to do with su. Should su change the security of
> the tty with chsid() before spawning a new shell and then change it back
> afterwards as login does? Or is there some difference in the way that su and
> login work that requires some different code?

We intentionally chose to not modify the su program for SELinux. Hence, su only changes the Linux identity attributes, not the SELinux security context. su is most commonly used to obtain Linux capabilities for administrative tasks by becoming the superuser, but this merely reflects a change in privilege, not a real change in the user who is performing the tasks. We would prefer to leave the SELinux user identity unmodified for user accountability in this case.

--
Stephen D. Smalley, NAI Labs
ssmalley@nai.com




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