Public SourceMage Discussion List

[doubletwist AT spack.nu]

I still find it disturbing that so much of sorcery runs as root.
Is there any reason that it can't all run as a "sorcery" user, which only
has access to what it needs [/var/spool/sorcery, /usr/src,
/var/lib/sorcery etc..]?
Perhaps make sudo a required spell, then for casting, when the spell needs
to do something as root, it can run sudo. [sudo make install]

This would at least narrow down to one step the possibility of hosing the
entire system, and sudo could be made to not require a password from the
sorcery user, so it won't be any less convenient.

Of course as mentioned, signing of sorcery, grimoire or whatever would
also be a good step...

DT


On Fri, 9 May 2003, Marc Greene wrote:

> It seems the best defense against this type of thing is simply keeping
> backups on hand. Also, it's probably a good idea as a precaution to
> umount any unnecessary filesystems with valuable or critical data before
> doing updates. As someone long ago mentioned, there is a great deal of
> trust in this whole system. If you think about it, there are a fair
> number of people involved in editing the scripts that get run as root on
> your computer. The SM users have to trust them to get it right, as well
> as think about security from hacks. I mean, if someone successfully
> impersonated one of the gurus, or hacked their machine/email account,
> then they wouldn't even need direct access to the servers to wreak havoc
> on SM users systems. So in addition to the things that Dufflebunk
> mentioned, users should probably also be encouraged to take what
> precautions they can for themselves so this trust issue won't be so
> scary.
>
> Marc
>
>  On Thu, 9 May 2003, Dufflebunk wrote: