Subject: Re: usernames, access rights in rc.d
To: NetBSD-Help <netbsd-help@NetBSD.org>
From: Serban Udrea <S.Udrea@gsi.de>
List: netbsd-help
Date: 03/17/2005 15:12:24
Hello,

and thank you for the answers!

Is there any way to find out which software still (unfortunately) relies on 8-char usernames?

Best regards,

Serban Udrea

Charles Swiger wrote:
> On Mar 16, 2005, at 4:04 AM, Serban Udrea wrote:
> 
>> 1) I created a new user without initially receiving any warnigs, but 
>> the day after, there was  a warning in the daily security report I get 
>> by email. It was about the fact that the username is longer than 8 
>> characters. Is this to be taken serious? I thought that nowadays the 
>> limitation of usernames to 8 chars is history.
> 
> 
> There is still a fair amount of software out there which assumes 8-char 
> usernames.  Exceed that limit at your own risk.
> 
>> 2) All scripts in /etc/rc.d have 555 permissions and /etc and /rc.d 
>> have 755 permissions. Thus any user can at least try to execute 
>> scripts from /etc/rc.d. I thought that this scripts are supposed to be 
>> run only by root.
> 
> 
> The scripts are intended to be run by root during the startup process.  
> Some of these scripts use "su" to run a daemon as some other user, and 
> it is reasonable for non-root users to run them, too...
>