Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 441495
No reason for bind binaries to be protected
Last modified: 2013-04-30 19:39:35 EDT
I set up a new RHEL 5 nameserver today, and the named user is unable to use rndc (despite having permission to read the rndc.conf/rndc.key files). I realized that the rndc binary (and all of the other binaries from the bind RPM) are only readable by root. There is no reason for this protection, as none of the binaries are setuid/setgid or contain private information (especially since anyone could build their own copy of bind, even from the RHEL SRPM, to get the same rndc functionality). This permission setting just means that access cannot be delegated, which is actually less secure (as now more system operation can only be done as root). This is also an issue with the Fedora bind RPM, although there some (but not all) binaries have been changed to world-readable/executable (see BZ 200465 and BZ 427826 for example).
You're right, current permissions are not really good. I'm going to revise them in next bind update.
Thanks.
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion, but this component is not scheduled to be updated in the current Red Hat Enterprise Linux release. If you would like this request to be reviewed for the next minor release, ask your support representative to set the next rhel-x.y flag to "?".
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on therefore solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2009-0246.html