Re: [gentoo-server] Opinion: ssh to root vs sudo

[Peter Abrahamsen]

Also, I believe sudo has 'sudoedit' or something along those lines,
which presumably allows you to edit a copy of the file before suid,
then copies the file back.

On 10/12/06, Janne Pikkarainen <jaba@××××××××××.fi> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I just joined gentoo-server mailing list yesterday. I've been semi-active in
> Gentoo forums since 2003, though, so some of you might recognize me from
> there.
>
> On Friday 13 October 2006 01:06, Christian Spoo wrote:
> > Ricardo Loureiro schrieb:
> > > That works well, until the users type sudo bash like I saw many ppl
> > > doing...
> >
> > Then you can restrict the commands your guys are allowed to execute.
> > It's very easily handled in the sudoers file.
> >
> > In typical LAMP installations you could configure, separate DB admin,
> > WWW admin, etc. and each one is only permitted to run a few commands.
>
> sudo is all fine and dandy, but it's one of those tools which allow you to
> shoot yourself to foot. The ability to give users root access to only handful
> of commands is a blessing - then again, it's also a curse.
>
> There is a built-in shell escape functionality built-in to many commands, and
> if some user has sudo access to such command, it's easy to spawn a separate
> root shell from there. Let's say your co-admins need to edit config files and
> they like to do it with vim, so you give them sudo access to vim. Well...
> just try what happens if you run "sudo vim" and give :!bash command in vim.
>
> That leads to root bash and lost audit trail. That's why I personally do not
> trust just sudo. If I really need a reliable audit trail, I'll use something
> like grsecurity audit groups instead.
>
> Just something to think about. :-) Of course there are plenty of commands
> without external command support and most of the time sudo is secure enough.
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