Re: exploring debian's users and groups
On Tue, Aug 07, 2001 at 01:35:48AM -0400, Joey Hess wrote:
> Debian has always lacked an explanation of what the various users and
> groups are for. Such a document is useful for sysadmins who must
> determine the correct way to use various users and groups. It's useful
> for developers as well, and it might help us find unused users and
> groups, or find unstated requirements about use of users and groups that
> could be put in policy.
>
> So here's a start. There are a lot of unanswered questions; can you help me
> answer some of them?
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Many users have a corresponding group, and these pairs will be treated
> together:
>
> irc:
>
> HELP: Why does an irc daemon need its own static user and group?
Fifteen years ago, writing trojaned irc servers, bots, and agents was
as much a part of every aspiring crackers toolkit as IIS worms are
now. As a result, irc agents have often been chock-a-block full of
backdoors. I have seen university environments where they were either
forbidden, or allowed only on non-priveleged accounts.
I suspect that a separate UID/GID was set up because someone had
either been 'owned' in the past via an irc backdoor, or knew someone
who had.
IRC seems to have settled down somewhat in this regard. But to err
on the side of caution, it is still a very good idea to have this
separated.
Jim Penny
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