[H-GEN] Script for Arson?

[ben.carlyle at invensys.com]

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Paul Gearon <pag at PISoftware.com>
Sent by: Majordomo <majordom at caliburn.humbug.org.au>
24/04/03 13:10
Please respond to general

 
        To:     general at lists.humbug.org.au
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        Subject:        Re: [H-GEN] Script for Arson?

> > is there a shell script I can write to do this?, I tried using su but 
it
> > doesnt seem to allow you to login with a password from the script, I
> > realise it's a bad idea having the root password in a plain text file
> > but what other option do I have?

> You definately NEVER want this!  It's a really bad idea!  :-)

> In such a situation just create yourself a root-owned script with all 
the
> "write" permission bits turned off, and the setuid bit turned on.  When
> the script is run the process will have root permissions.

Many unices don't permit scripts to use the setuid bit. I believe linux is 
one of them. Alternate approaches include executing the script with sudo 
or su -c. Another common approach is to create an executable who's sole 
purpose is to run the script within a setuid environment. Sudo and su -c 
are better approaches, methinks... :) sudo has the advantage that a user 
can use his or her own password to spark the execution whereas the su -c 
requires the user to know the root password. You already covered what may 
be the best approach in this case, which is to include the user in an 
appropriate group for access to the device.

Benjamin.


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