I know suid is a "Bad Idea"(tm) however I have
a need to execute pppd as a regular user.
Is there another way to do it???

-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Buettner [mailto:kev@primenet.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 10:42 AM
To: plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
Subject: Re: pppd question


On Feb 2, 12:28pm, Furmanek, Greg wrote:

> Setup/Background:
> I have set up pppd deamon to dial if the
> user who executes it is part of pppd group.
> I have changed premissions on 
> pppd 755 root:pppd (-r-sr-xr-x)
> options 640 root:pppd
> chat_script 640 root:pppd
> 
> Problem:
> The pppd is giving me following error:
> 
> /usr/sbin/pppd: using the name option requires root privilage
> 
> Does anyone have a quick fix for it???

Making pppd setuid root is really not a very good idea unless you
want to give everyone the ability to execute arbitrary scripts as
root.  (See the connect, disconnect, pty, and welcome options.)

If you really need to give ordinary users the power to execute
pppd (and I'm not convinced this is necessary), you should look
into using sudo.  It will help close the security hole that you've
opened up as well as solve your problem.

sudo may be found at

	http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/

Kevin

-- 
Kevin Buettner
kev@primenet.com, kevinb@redhat.com

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