Re: root password is not stored in /etc/cipux/

[Christian Kuelker <christian.kuelker@cipworx.org>]

Hi,
On Tuesday 12 December 2006 11:28, you wrote:

> the password for smbadmin is generated (and never displayed) during the
> installation.

> The user is allowed to generate machine accounts, and to add/update
> samba entries on a normal user account. 

This is great! I am not against LDAP ACLs at all. 

> The password is readable by root 
> when you use it with tdbdump I think.

yes and if you do that it is in claer text. (on sarge an woody I tested that)

So you use tcpdump to get a clear text password.
With cipux you can use (only as root) cat.

If I understand you right, the idea is to use opposite of tcpdump to mystify
the storage of the password?

So the basic security bind samba is only chmod and chown on the filesystem, as 
I said.

> It might be possible to create an posix account with userid 0 using this
> password (under ou=Machines,ou=People,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no), it
> should be impossible to set a shadow password for the user using the
> smbadmin password. When I think of it, it might be possible to use the
> newly created account  with userid 0 the store a ssh-public key, and by
> that log into the server. I have newer tried, though. 

So do we have a security problem also with samba?

My assumption in the past was, that samba was set up in a save way under skole 
and I do so exactly with CipUX. But every time I talk about implementation 
details i got complains about security. I appreciate this because it let us 
think about a good platform. 

So make samba save and we choose the same method for CipUX.

> If I do have root 
> access on the main server, it would be much easier to temporary set a
> new ldap admin password, and create the account that way...

yes this is obvious.

Greetings
Christian