hjespersen@trillium.waterloo.edu (Hans Jespersen) (11/22/88)
Since the topic of security is very hot right now, I thought I'd share a little trick I learned resently. 3.51 (and others I believe) come default with VERY liberal permissions on /. I think it might even be 777. Anyhow, the trick is to create a fake passwd file in a directory off / (ie. /newetc/passwd). Modify this passwd file to suit. Then IN ONE LINE type : mv /etc /oldetc;mv /newetc /etc This must be done in one line or the box will crash. If a system process comes along and sees that there is no passwd file that's it. Anyway, the moral of the posting is CHECK YOUR PERMISSIONS particularity with regard to the / directory. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Jespersen | uunet!watmath!trillium!hjespersen University of Waterloo | "Defn. of Natural Logarithm - A lumbarjacks Waterloo, Ontario | idea of birth control." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------