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Re: pmud and gkrellm on tcp???



Hi Stephan,

Just thought you should be aware of a discussion on the debian-powerpc mailing
list about your pmud utility.  For the full thread, see the list archives
available from the debian website (www.debian.org).  Thanks..


On Wed, Oct 18, 2000 at 11:36:46AM +0200, Michael Schmitz wrote:
<snip>
> > well... personally i would not want all users to be able to put my
> > machine to sleep, remember that local user != console user.  
> 
> For a laptop machine? If you have a Powerbook permanently hooked up to the
> network and dozens of users logged in, chances are it's on AC power and
> you won't need pmud. Don't run it, then. 
>  
> > in this case a unix domain socket might be a nicer way to go since you
> > can change the permissions to only allow a certain group access.  
> 
> Yeah, that would be the only benefit I can see, and Unix' permissions
> model is too weak to bother. 
<snip>


Originally I didn't twig to the fact that pmud allows the connecting client to
issue commands to sleep.  This is slightly concerning, and it would be good to
restrict down to ensure only authorized users have access.  Authorization
could be determined throught the use of a permission checked unix domain
socket, or by some sort of authentication on the protocol.

However, Michael is right that the scope of the problem is such that spending
excessive time working on this is really not necessary - since we're only
talking about laptops that are mobile (not on AC).  In the rare event that
someone does have a laptop that is being used as a server (and hence has
multiple local users) then they can choose to not run pmud.

My suggestion for Michael is to add a short note to the pmud package (either
in the docs directory, man page, or via debconf) to point out this.  That way
everyone will be aware of this situation.

For Stephan, the author, I suggest that the tightening of this "feature" be
added as a wishlist item for the program.


Chris

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