Subject: Re: "su" in rescue?
To: None <tech-userlevel@NetBSD.org>
From: Luke Mewburn <lukem@NetBSD.org>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 06/29/2004 18:34:05
--eu3wiNhV//uY/+NS
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline

On Tue, Jun 29, 2004 at 10:03:50AM +0200, Ignatios Souvatzis wrote:
  | On Tue, Jun 29, 2004 at 05:57:43PM +1000, Luke Mewburn wrote:
  | > I still haven't seen a justification why this would be necessary.
  | > What is wrong with "boot -as" (or the platform equivalent), and
  | > repairing the problem with /rescue/init && /rescue/* ?
  |
  | I think the person in question (I lost track of the origin of this
  | thread) wants to repair a system while remotely logged in as a
  | non-root (when e.g. NFS /usr has gone away for some reason) without
  | using a remote console.


a) How do you stuff up a symlink and not have a root shell around?
(This is a rhetorical question...  I know you can do it, it's just a
weird situation to get in :-| )

b) This situation was a problem before we had /rescue.
/rescue and fixes to "boot -a" have actually made this situation
easier to recover from than prior NetBSD releases.

c) The primary concern with making /usr/bin/su static is that we
lose all the benefits of going fully dynamic linked in the first
place, including supporting PAM, message locales, and easier
library security fixes.

d) If we _did_ decide that we needed set?id programs in /rescue
(such as /rescue/su) it's not hard to provide a build framework
to support this.  [Addressing a point Andrew Brown raised].

--eu3wiNhV//uY/+NS
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature
Content-Disposition: inline

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (NetBSD)

iD8DBQFA4Sl9pBhtmn8zJHIRAnA/AJ9kh/6o9AIen3uPqhF510WhMLfBEgCeMlS9
2PKV4nZ/4rs+QlYbX5lZDHI=
=HfJZ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--eu3wiNhV//uY/+NS--