On Mon, Mar 26, 2001 at 08:26:14AM -0800, Wolfgang Rupprecht wrote:
> It looks like /usr/bin/ssh is no longer installed suid-root.  Is this
> a bug or intentional?  (If intentional does that mean one is expected
> to chmod the private keyfiles to be user readable???)

I think others have addressed the sshd-isn't-ssh bit already. :^>

ssh's suid bit is unset (and should be, imho) because of unresolved
problems (with the protocol, not the implementation) by which an
evil sshd could use a client's X and authentication forwarding to
take advantage of the host running the client. If the ssh client
were suid to boot, that would mean remote root access.

This is also why OpenSSH (rightly) defaults the ForwardX11 and
ForwardAgent options to no, requiring you to set them explicitly in
~/.ssh/config. (Our in-tree ssh should behave the same way, though
I've not checked recently, since I explicitly do that for Host * in
my ssh config.)

       ~ g r @ eclipsed.net