Re: Off Topic - SUID?

[Pat Mahoney <patmahoney@gmx.net>]

On Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 12:30:38AM -0500, William Jensen wrote:
> What is SUID?  RipperX complains it wants to be run as SUID?

SUID is Set User I D.  RipperX probably wants to SUID root?
That means that if joe user runs RipperX, it will be as if root had run it.

SUID is the cause of many security holes.  Some programs run suid root when
they don't have to...  Generaly it is a bad idea, but it is necessary in
many places.

What is ripperX, some cd ripping software?  If you run a single user
workstation, suid root binaries are not such a large problem.  You still
want to avoid them whenever possible, but ripperX obviously needs it (wants
it anyway).

Maybe RipperX just needs access to the cdrom device?  You should add you
user to the approiate group to gain access to the cd device. (Group cdrom
here).

SUID is part of the standard file permissions thing.  If a binary is suid
and owned by root, it is suid root.  To make something suid root, you must
be root; then you must make sure root owns it (ls -l `which RipperX`).  If
root doesn't own it, then (assuming it wants suid root) run a chown
root.root `which RipperX`  ; then to set the suid bit, run chmod 4755 `which
RipperX`

the 4 in 4755 is the suid bit.

`which RipperX` just returns the path to the binary.  You can specify this
however you want.

Note that RipperX is now world executable and suid root.  I take no
responsibility for any damage this may cause...

> 
> Wm
> 

-- 
Pat Mahoney	<patmahoney@gmx.net>

For children with short attention spans: boomerangs that don't come back.