* Andreas Barth (aba@not.so.argh.org) wrote:
* Stephen Frost (sfrost@snowman.net) [051026 20:13]:
This is just patently false, as has been pointed out elsewhere.
What
security hole, exactly, is created by orphaning a file?
Well, if some process (maybe within the package) creates a private log
file that contains sensitive information, and this log file can later
on
be read by a process with much less privileges, this is usually
considered as security relevant issue.
Except log files are supposed to be removed and I don't know of any
actual case of this happening anyway.
Additionally, this is *not* a problem with the orphaning of the file,
it's a problem with the reuse of a previously-used uid. I could see
adding a system to track previously-used uids and not reusing them. I
don't believe using passwd for that (and keeping unused accounts in
passwd/shadow/group/gshadow/etc) is appropriate. It would seem enough
to me, at least, to keep an ever-increasing counter where the current
value is the next available uid. This could be reset if it reaches the
max, or an error presented to the user about it or some such.
I'm not convinced that's necessary but I could see it being something
reasonable to do. Just leaving around unused accounts isn't reasonable.