Re: [gentoo-security] Changes to traceroute in newest release

[Michael Reilly]

On Tue, 16 Dec 2003 12:18:42 -0500
Kurt Lieber <klieber@g.o> wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 11:59:00AM -0500 or thereabouts, David Olsen
> wrote:
> > Am I the only one that finds the newest changes to traceroute nothing
> > but a large inconvenience?
>
> Well, I can't speak for everyone else, but I certainly find the changes
> welcome.

I find the change offensive.  It is my system and I want the tools I install
to work.  There is no excuse for someone thinking they can force me to su
every time I want to run traceroute.  Of course the fix is obvious - chmod
4755 traceroute.

Why isn't this a USE option?

I do hope the new traceroute works when set suid unlike another "tool" in
common use for looking at network traffic which refuses to run when set suid
- I have not tried it yet.

michael
>
> > As near as I can figure, if I install traceroute, I want to use it, not
> > muck with permissions or su - everytime I care to do some network
> > analyzation.
>
> This is going to sound inflammatory, but I truly don't mean it as such.
> That said, this is the mentality that caused Microsoft so many problems
> with their products over the year.  They made a conscious decision that
> usability concerns would (almost) always trump security concerns.  That
> led to lovely things like new shares having "Anyone/Full Control"
> permissions by default.
>
> At least on my servers, the only people I want using tools like
> traceroute/tracepath are those folks who are responsbible for
> administering them.  Those are the same people who have root access on the
> server, so requiring them to type 'sudo' in front of the command isn't
> overly burdensome, imo.
>
> --kurt
>


-- 
---- ---- ----
Michael Reilly    michaelr@×××××.com
    Cisco Systems, Santa Cruz, CA

--
gentoo-security@g.o mailing list