Why is the chmod values in /home insecure by default?

[Peter Risdon]

Jesper Wallin wrote:

>>Jesper Wallin wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Hello..
>>>
>>>I'm running FreeBSD 5.2.1-RELEASE-p5 and when I create new user accounts with
>>>"adduser",
>>>the home directories are world readable/executable.. Sure, it might be useful if I want
>>>to publish a website in my public_html, but yet, it should be up to the user if he want
>>>to have his homedir world-readable, but by default it should be set to "chmod 700" or
>>>"chmod 750" if each user has their own group imho. However, I saw that "adduser" had a
>>>config file (/etc/adduser.conf) but the there is no manual entry for adduser.conf and I
>>>can't find any example for it.. How can I change the default permission for new
>>>home-directories?
>>>
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>This might help:
>>
>>http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/freebsd/2000-08/0361.html
>>
>>Basically, you need to change the permissions f the directory
>>/usr/share/skel and its contents.
>>
>>PWR.
>>
>>
>>    
>>
>
>Hello..
>
>First of all, thanks for your answer.. I tried to chmod both /etc/skel and
>/usr/share/skel to 700, yet it's not working.. I've checked in /usr/local/etc for any
>"skel" directory, but it's not there and the man page for "adduser" says it's
>/usr/share/skel (which doesn't work) ..
>  
>

When I do it (and I chmod'ed the contents of /usr/share/skel as well as 
the directory), I get a home directory with the permissions you mention, 
but all the contents are 0700. Therefore no other user can see them.

But I can see this isn't quite what you asked for so I have just 
searched a bit. Googling gives me a patch to adduser (you'd have to 
adjust this to get the exact behaviour you're looking for):

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-bugs/2003-December/004620.html

And an elaboration of the type of workaround I originally suggested, at:

http://freebsdaddicts.org/modules.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=2

HTH.

PWR.