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Bug 260

Summary: should xterm be suid?
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: ian.clark
Component: distributionAssignee: David Lawrence <dkl>
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 5.2Keywords: 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: 1998-12-02 16:14:31 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 ian.clark 1998-12-02 12:05:24 UTC 
I have just installed redhat 5.2 and noticed that xterm was
running as root. Upon looking in /usr/X11R6/bin in noticed
there a number of files set as suid is this correct?

The files affected are :-

kterm
nxterm
seyon
xbill
xhextris
xscreensaver
and xterm
also (but i'm not sure about) XConsole and XWrapper.

Ian
Comment 1 Bill Nottingham 1998-12-02 16:14:59 UTC 
XConsole, kterm, nxterm, xterm are suid to log to utmp/wtmp.
xscreensaver is setuid to read shadow passwords.
(this will be changed in a future release...)
xbill & xhextris are set(u|g)id *games* to read/write score files.
XWrapper is suid so the X server isn't. :)