Security Run Output Setuid Differences

[Roland Smith]

On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 11:59:33AM -0700, PeterPluta wrote:
<snip>
> > Looks like you were portupgrading around with postfix, screen and xterm.
> > 
> > The output is diff(1).  See the man page for details, but it's basically
> > showing you the difference between last night's directory listing, and
> > that
> > of the previous day.
> > 
> > For more gory details, see the scripts in /etc/periodic/security, which
> > are
> > run every night from cron.  Some of the ports you changed resulted in
> > changes to setuid/setgid programs installed on the system.  As a security-
> > concious administrator, you should be interested in the programs on your
> > system that have elevated privilidges, so this script is provided to give
> > you a daily report on that.
> 
> I see, so basically after reinstalling the default uid/gid of some programs
> changed? Is that a problem or anything? 

It's not a problem. It's just something that you should be aware of from
a security standpoint.

In this case you caused it because you upgraded some ports, which is OK.

But if the size, date, ownership or permissions of a binary change
without any apparent cause, it _could_ be the work of an intruder or
rootkit trying to backdoor your system. That's why the system checks it.

In /etc/defaults/periodic.conf you see which settings there are
concerning security, and what the defaults are. If you want to disable
some of them, put the settings in /etc/periodic.conf with a "NO" value
instead of "YES". But I would recommend to leave them as they are.

Roland
-- 
R.F.Smith                                   http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/
[plain text _non-HTML_ PGP/GnuPG encrypted/signed email much appreciated]
pgp: 1A2B 477F 9970 BA3C 2914  B7CE 1277 EFB0 C321 A725 (KeyID: C321A725)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 187 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/attachments/20070521/a6ebcbe1/attachment.pgp