Re: ~/.hosts patch

Brooks Davis wrote:
On Wed, Jun 21, 2006 at 12:54:32AM -0400, Mike Jakubik wrote:
Justin Hibbits wrote:
Hey folks, got an interesting patch. This adds a ~/.hosts file (personal version of /etc/hosts). It was written against 6-STABLE about a week before 6.1 was released, and has been sitting collecting dust for the last month and a half. Currently it augments /etc/hosts instead of replacing it or prepending it. Any comments? One suggestion that was made was to make it an nss module so that it could be controlled by the admin. It probably could use some cleanup as well, just putting it out here for proof of concept for now, and some direction.
Just what exactly is the point of having a user specified hosts file? Seems like a bad idea to me, in terms of security.

It's useful for cases where you want to add shortcuts to hosts as a user
or do interesting ssh port forwarding tricks in some weird cases where
you must connect to localhost:port as remotehost:port due to
client/server protocol bugs.

This patch appears to only support ~/.hosts for non-suid binaries which
is the only real security issue. Any admin relying on host to IP
mapping for security for ordinary users is an idiot so that case isn't
worth worrying about. Doing this as a separate nss module probably
makes sense, but I personally like the feature.

Of course relying on /etc/hosts entries for security alone is indeed not a good idea, however an Admin may choose to resolve and therefore route specified hostnames via /etc/hosts. The user should not be able to overwrite these, if this behavior is true, then it seems like a reasonable change to me, otherwise it not only seems to be a security problem, but also a breach of POLA.

_______________________________________________
freebsd-current@xxxxxxxxxxx mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-current-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxx"

Relevant Pages

  • Re: ~/.hosts patch
    ... One suggestion that was made was to make it an nss module so that it could be controlled by the admin. ... Seems like a bad idea to me, in terms of security. ... It's useful for cases where you want to add shortcuts to hosts as a user ...
    (freebsd-current)
  • (no subject)
    ... Look at the Navy-Marine Corps Internet, a contract ... Security is secuirty and penetration means exactly that. ... You just hit a sore spot w/ me...the CSI/FBI survey. ... it's probably an admin who has ...
    (comp.security.misc)
  • (no subject)
    ... Look at the Navy-Marine Corps Internet, a contract ... Security is secuirty and penetration means exactly that. ... You just hit a sore spot w/ me...the CSI/FBI survey. ... it's probably an admin who has ...
    (comp.os.ms-windows.nt.admin.security)
  • Re: Food for Thought
    ... Look at the Navy-Marine Corps Internet, a contract ... Security is secuirty and penetration means exactly that. ... that telling the reader to do a Google search for sources isn't going to ... it's probably an admin who has ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.security)
  • Re: Grant Administrative Access to a Domain Controller
    ... Anyone with a good understanding of AD and Windows security will easily see ways of compromising the environment. ... Do not give enhanced rights to Domain Controllers to anyone you don't trust with Domain and/or Enterprise Admins. ... Just know that minimal access can be parlayed into even more access and try as you might, you cannot secure Active Directory from people with server operator or admin or several other levels of access rights on a DC. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.active_directory)