Newbie question

Mr happy · 01-25-2003, 02:53 AM

Hi

I am using rhat 8 and was wondering why it is necessarry to have world writable and executable permissions anywhere.

- on my distro I have found /tmp and /var/tmp that fit this description.

Is it safe (will things start to break?

) or advised for these to be non executable?

Thanks

markus1982 · 01-25-2003, 03:34 AM

If you've split up these 2 trees into 2 partitions like it's suggested from a security point of view you can change the mount flags to defaults,rw,nodev,noexec,nosuid ... this prevents a couple of attack methods! So as example for /etc/fstab:

Code:

...
LABEL=/tmp	/tmp	ext2	defaults,rw,nodev,noexec,nosuid		1 2
...

Mr happy · 01-27-2003, 06:48 AM

Thanks will do.

Basically I am experimenting @ the moment - trying to setup so some users can't create then execute files. Good to know that in most cases u don't really need exec permission on /tmp.

Probably better on a new thread but is there any recommended reading material for locking down a workstation from a logged in users viewpoint? Choice of shell? Mounting option for home directories. Disabling remote access. That sort of thing.

I am pretty new to this but getting a hang of the basic stuff.

Thanks

markus1982 · 01-27-2003, 01:03 PM

There is a lot of information regarding that around. There are excellent ones for example for Debian GNU/Linux ... I admit I like the Securing Debian Manual.

For RedHat there is a guide at www.openna.com ... the current version can be orderd ... I would suggest something like that. It covers a lot of different aspects.

Just use your favourite search engine - mine is google and look for something like locking down linux box