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Asking a user for the root password and executing root only commands...

Bengt Richter bokr at oz.net
Wed Oct 30 15:45:47 EST 2002 
On Wed, 30 Oct 2002 18:54:06 GMT, Axel Vandevenne <axel at vandevenne.net> wrote:

>Stuart D. Gathman wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 30 Oct 2002 09:55:03 -0500, Andrew Koenig wrote:
>> 
>>> Axel> They should get a nice qt windows asking for the root password,
>>> Axel> wich will then check if that's the correct password by probably
>>> Axel> su'ing?
>>> 
>>> Don't do this.  If it is successful, it will tend to condition users to
>>> believe that it is acceptable to supply the root password to a program
>>> that is not su or sudo.  That belief is dangerous, because it makes
>>> users more vunlerable to social engineering.
>> 
>> I second this.  THink about it.  I can send you a python worm that pops up
>> a window, asks for root password, then uses the 'pty' module and 'su' to
>> run any code I desire as root - python or otherwise.  Any non-root code
>> with the root password is effectively root code.
>> 
>
>I see your point, but you can do this in eg kcontrol too, wich is used a LOT 
>more than my program will ever be, and my program is for gentoo linux only 
>- if you are so naive to give your root password to any program, you'd 
>prolly be using windows or mandrake kind of distros...
>
>>What about delegating this task to sudo or kdesu (if KDE is installed)?
>As I stated, I don't want them to have to configure sudo...
>Kdesu seems nice though, but it has the disadvantage that you have to have 
>kde installed...
>
>Any other methods, or comments?
>Do more people think it should be started as root (even though kde uses this 
>system to ask for a root password)? 

Switching security/access privileges should really require a guaranteed secure
connection to a trusted program. To guarantee that, there has to be a signal
that no userland program can intercept, like Ctrl-Alt-Del on a typical PC.

Out of the box my NT handles that better than my OOTB Linux, which was default
configured to shut down. I haven't played with that much. Is there a way to
start up a login on Ctrl-Alt-Del (probably meaning take over the video and go
into text mode)?

I guess this is a bit OT...

Regards,
Bengt Richter
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