[plug] pppd

[John Summerfield]

> On Wed, Nov 03, 1999 at 10:49:29AM +0800, Chris Johnstone wrote:
> > Hi, I am new to linux and have just installed Red Hat 6.0 on my machine.
> > I am having a problem connecting to the net on my user account. When I
> > go to start kppp it says that the pppd binary is not properly installed
> > with the SUID bit set. 
> > 
> > I was wondering is there another dialer that I can use, OR is there a
> > relatively easy way to fix this problem. BTW this problem does not occur
> > when I log on as root.
> 
> There is a relatively easy way to fix it, yes. As root, do:
> 
> chmod u+s /usr/sbin/pppd

I've seen reports that linuxconfig happily tuns this off again. I don't 
use Linuxconfig so can't say from my experience.


> 
> This adds the SUID bit to the pppd executable - this means that it will run
> with root (assuming root _owns_ the executable) privileges no matter who
> runs it.  There are certain programs on a Linux system (usually those that
> need to access hardware directly) that need to run with root privileges,
> but from a security viewpoint you should be careful about which ones you
> grant such privileges to.  Most methods for compromising systems involve
> taking advantage of buggy or just badly written SUID programs.
>
pppd is supposedly rather good in this respect.
-- 
Cheers
John Summerfield
http://os2.ami.com.au/os2/ for OS/2 support.
Configuration, networking, combined IBM ftpsites index.