On Tue, Dec 26, 2000 at 07:42:05AM -0800, collver@softhome.net wrote:
> Well, I tried removing the SUID bit on /usr/bin/login and was able to log
> into my machine as a normal user.  init runs getty as root, and it looks
> like getty also runs login as root.
> 
> I have no idea whether you can remove suid on everything.

Programs are usually suid or sgid for some reason (su so that it can change
the uid, lpr so that it can queue jobs, sendmail so that it can queue
messages, etc ...). I believe /usr/bin/login can be started by network
daemons too, which may not have root privileges at this time.

--
Manuel Bouyer, LIP6, Universite Paris VI.           Manuel.Bouyer@lip6.fr
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