Got root?
Hi
I know that this might sound like a stupid question, but its one that has
been bugging me.
Why does UNIX continue to give root access to all deamons below port 1024?
I know that UNIX does it so that normal users can't seem like legit and
important services, but there surely must be some better way of delegating a
port below 1024 to a deamon.
A while ago, I remember reading on slashdot about how TrustedBSD and OpenBSD
were different from each other. One of the differences was the fact that
TrustedBSD used ACLs to give acccess to whatever for whomever. Couldn't you
essentially do the same for ports? (Instead of giving access to files, you
would give acces to ports)
It would be like having a file called /etc/acl.ports (or something) and
within the file, would be a list which binaries are allowed to bind to what
ports. (an example is provided below)
# /etc/acl.ports
# Port Numbers binary
80 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
22 /usr/local/openssh/sshd
21 /usr/local/anonftpd/ftpd
This way, not only would root have control over all ports below 1024, but the
deamons themselves don't need to be running as root. (I also think that it
would be very odd for a deamon _needing_ root access to run in the first
place ...)
Thanks for hearing me out. I could be very wrong on all of this. (Sorry if
I am) I would just like to know why this hasn't been implemented in UNIX.
(Actually, I did once hear about some patch to the LInux kernel that did
something similar, but I have yet to find the patch)
Sunny Dubey
<insert funny-witty comment here>
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