Bug 22353

Summary:	passwd -removing executable bit doesn't give the expected results.
Product:	[Retired] Red Hat Linux	Reporter:	Need Real Name <orlando_toujague>
Component:	binutils	Assignee:	Jakub Jelinek <jakub>
Status:	CLOSED NOTABUG	QA Contact:	David Lawrence <dkl>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	7.0	Keywords:	Security
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	i386
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2000-12-15 16:14:37 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Need Real Name 2000-12-15 16:14:34 UTC

I just took the RH133 course with Mr. Day at your HQ site this week and
found an item that  seemed a bit buggy.

The instructor informed us that if you were to take "execute" away from
/usr/bin/passwd, the SUID bit would go from a small 's' to a capital 'S'
thus indicating a problem. This did infact happen.

However, he also did say that neither the typical user nor root would be
able to execute /usr/bin/passwd. When I tried it though, even though the
user account wasn't able to execute /usr/bin/passwd I found that root still
could. Was he wrong? Or is this a bug? Thanks.

Comment 1 Jakub Jelinek 2000-12-15 16:23:12 UTC

First of all, this is in no way related to binutils.
Second, it depends how you "took away" execute bit. If any of the
owner/group/other execute bits are set, root (passwd is owned by root:root)
is allowed to execute it.