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On 05/02/10 16:13, Stefan Behte wrote: |
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> Hi, |
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> |
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> in some environments you have to rename "root" to something else, just |
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> to be compliant to a (maybe dumb) security policy. This might be the |
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> case for PCI, and as far as I remember, it is necessary (not just |
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> "recommended") for a BSI Grundschutz certification (meaning something |
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> like "basic security protection") [1]. Unfortunately I didn't find the |
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> exact link. |
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Interesting... to me that's not only stupid but also kinda useless - there's no |
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difference between brute-forcing a password for user named 'foo' or 'root' - |
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user name doesn't matter much. Actually according to my ssh logs attackers |
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usually don't even try root, they try other user account names way more often. |
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Keep in mind that most compromised systems are used to send spam, take part in |
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DoS attacks, etc - you don't need root to do that. Breaking into root account |
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may actually be harmful as it may trip some security measures. |
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It's better to disable password-based remote login altogether in sshd_config. |
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Security by obscurity is a nice way to make pseudo-sys-admins feel warm and fuzzy :] |
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> This might prevent or make usage of gentoo more complicated in those |
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> environments, but is only a problem for a small fraction of our user base. |
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> |
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> Best regards, |
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> |
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> Craig |
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> |
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> |
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> [1] |
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> https://www.bsi.bund.de/cln_183/ContentBSI/EN/Publications/Bsi_standards/standards.html |
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> |
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> 30.04.2010 20:07, Michał Górny wrote: |
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>> Hello, |
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>> |
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>> I would like to put an emphasis on the fact that many eclasses |
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>> and ebuilds in gx86 are relying on an assumption that the superuser |
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>> account is always supposed to be named 'root'. |
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>> |
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>> In fact, no such constraint exists. Although most users will never even |
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>> think of changing the superuser account name, it is perfectly legit |
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>> to do so, and to use any name for that account. Moreover, it is |
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>> perfectly legit to name an unprivileged user 'root' too. |
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>> |
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>> Thus, the above assumption is clearly incorrect and may result in many |
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>> issues with ebuilds using it. These range from builds failing because |
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>> of chown 'invalid user' error to packages being installed with |
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>> incorrect file ownership. |
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>> |
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>> From what I've heard already, similar problem has hit Gentoo/*BSD users |
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>> already, with superuser group not being named 'root'. Although some |
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>> files were fixed to properly use numeric GID in the specific case, |
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>> no UID-related changes were done. |
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>> |
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>> Moreover, not all developers agree with the case being an issue, |
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>> and they even refuse patches clearly fixing it [1]. Thus, I guess that |
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>> a clear policy regarding referencing the superuser account should be |
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>> enforced. |
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>> |
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>> In my opinion, that policy should clearly indicate that the numeric |
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>> UID/GID should be always used for referencing the superuser account |
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>> as they are fixed unlike the names. |
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>> |
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>> [1] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=315779 |
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>> |
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> |
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> |
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> |
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-- |
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Krzysztof Pawlik <nelchael at gentoo.org> key id: 0xF6A80E46 |
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desktop-misc, java, apache, ppc, vim, kernel, python... |
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