Bug 111578

Summary: rwhod runs as root
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Andrew Taylor <ataylor>
Component: rwhoAssignee: Phil Knirsch <pknirsch>
Status: CLOSED INSUFFICIENT_DATA QA Contact: Ben Levenson <benl>
Severity: low Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 2CC: mattdm, rvokal
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Last Closed: 2006-10-25 20:27:23 UTC Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Flags
spec file changes to run rwhod as a non-privileged user
none
sysv init file changes to run rwhod as a non-privileged user none

Description Andrew Taylor 2003-12-05 18:06:47 UTC 
From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.6a)
Gecko/20031030

Description of problem:
The rwhod daemon has the ability to drop root privileges on its writer
process.  We might as well take advantage of this capability and run
it as a non-priviledged user.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
rwho-0.17-19

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Run rwhod.

Actual Results:  Runs as root.

Expected Results:  The writer process should be a non-priviledged user.
Comment 1 Andrew Taylor 2003-12-05 18:14:31 UTC 
Created attachment 96372 [details]
spec file changes to run rwhod as a non-privileged user
Comment 2 Andrew Taylor 2003-12-05 18:20:58 UTC 
Created attachment 96373 [details]
sysv init file changes to run rwhod as a non-privileged user

These patches make rwhod run the writer process as a new user called "rwhod".

As few notes:
the uid for rwhod is 49, which I chose at random.  It doesn't seem to conflict
with anything I've been able to find.  Is there a registry for system uids
somewhere?

Also, if an existing rwho RPM is updated, any files in /var/spool/rwho owned by
root will not be writable by rwhod, effectively freezing the rwho information
for those hosts in time.  Perhaps the spec file should do a chown?
Comment 3 Phil Knirsch 2004-10-18 15:34:32 UTC 
Sounds like a good idea.

Investigating and discussing with folks here.

Read ya, Phil
Comment 4 Matthew Miller 2005-04-26 15:38:47 UTC 
Fedora Core 2 is now maintained by the Fedora Legacy project for
security updates only. If this problem is a security issue, please
reopen and reassign to the Fedora Legacy product. If it is not a
security issue and hasn't been resolved in the current FC3 updates or
in the FC4 test release, reopen and change the version to match.
Comment 5 John Thacker 2006-10-25 20:27:23 UTC 
Closing per previous comment and lack of response.  Also note that FC1 and FC2
are no longer supported even by Fedora Legacy.