On Wed, 17 Jun 1998, Kevin Ogden wrote:

> At 03:35 PM 6/17/98 -0000, harry wrote:
> >since there is no adduser script, i was trying my luck with the passwd 
> >and group files. i don't really know what i'm doing but i understand you 
> >have to add the user to the wheel group to su to root. is there any way 
> >to allow root telnet logins? 
> 
> The group file is fairly self explanatory :)  To allow you to telnet in as
> root just mark the ttyp* devices in /etc/ttys as secure.  It should work at
> that point.

This will work, but I STRONGLY recomend you don't. Log in as yourself, and
then su to root. That way you have an audit trail.

Unless you're logging in via a small, secure network (like an in-house
ethernet), DON'T type root's password over the network. Whenever you log
in with telnet, everything you type, such as root's password when you log
in, or if you su, goes as clear-text. There are quite a few packages out
there which will happily spy on your password, and save it to  a file so
that a cracker can get your root password.

Either use kerberos, or use ssh. You can get ssh for free for unix, and
there's already a package for it in /usr/pkgsrc. :-)

Even if there's nothing to steal on your computer, you need to be careful.
Your computer could become the springboard for another attack.

One of the Linux boxes was broken into a few weeks ago, and the person
started querrying machines on the internet to see who was running an old,
insecure verion of BIND. We yanked the computer from the net when the
campus security folks said the Navy had phoned them inquiring about the
problem. :-)

> >pico and joe don't seem to refresh the screen properly while editing 
> >text. 
> 
> make sure you have your console set as vt220, or the appropriate terminal
> type for your serial terminal/telnet.

I've found vt100 seems to work better for me with dt. YMMV.

> >all network activity goes straight to the screen. is there a way to log 
> >remote logins and stuff to disk? it interrupts whatever the person at the 
> >console is doing..
> 
> edit /etc/syslog.conf

The only remote logins I see are ones involving root, or someone su'ing to
root.

root's not supposed to be the every-day usage account. root's for fixing
(/breaking) things. Whomever's at the console should know when someone's
gaining root access.

Take care,

Bill