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Re: Bug#427605: ITP: privbind -- Allow unprivileged apps to bind to a privileged port



On Wednesday 06 June 2007 20:05, Shachar Shemesh <shachar@debian.org> wrote:
> > What benefits does this offer over authbind which has been in Debian for
> > ages?
>
> It uses a (I think) much more secure mode of operation. In particular:
> - No SUID executables
> - User who launches the daemon must be root

Having a daemon instead of a SUID executable does not inherently make it more 
secure (there has been no shortage of exploits for bugs in daemons in the 
past).

> - Privileges go down, never up

The usual system is that a process with UID != 0 can not bind to ports below 
1024.  Breaking this involves increasing the privileges of some programs.

> And, as a result:
> - No global configuration necessary (though one will probably be added
> later if necessary).

How can there be no global configuration needed?  The sysadmin needs to decide 
which users are granted the privilege to bind to low ports and which ports 
those users may bind to.

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