sudo in general, and not requiring password in particular (was Re: trouble adding my user to sudoers list)

Thu Jul 4 08:07:22 MST 2024

you inspired me, rusty. thank you.

On Wed, Jul 3, 2024 at 4:00 PM rusty <rustycar54 at descomp.com> wrote:

> Let me start by apologizing here - I'm feeling a bit silly...
>
> how about 'becomeroot' or 'iwannaplaygod' or 'rootme' or maybe even
> 'meroot'  or 'beroot'
>
> Yeah, sorry, but remember I did apologize first! ;-)
> And, of course, DON'T POST what you made it!
>
> On Wed, Jul 3, 2024 at 07:59, Michael via PLUG-discuss <
> plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>
> I've figured out how I'm going to secure my system. I will link sudo to
> another command and then create an alias for sudo that will echo something
> like, 'Sudo has been disabled,' if I forget. Now I need suggestions on what
> to use. Chat gpt suggests supersudo but that's too long. What do you all
> think?
>
> On Tue, Jul 2, 2024 at 11:42 PM George Toft via PLUG-discuss <
> plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>
>> Okay, I now come begging for more information on why RH thinks sudo is
>> bad. But first a little background...
>>
>> Where I work, the first thing we do is remove sudo and replace it with a
>> shell script that calls our centralized Privileged Access Management
>> (PAM) system (not naming vendor). The use of sudo requires and exception
>> and review and is not permanent. So I'm very versed on the principles
>> and implementation of PAM. Last year our Staff Architect asked me to
>> compare and contrast sudo against <unnamed product>. Side-by-side,
>> feature-by-feature, I did so, based on our POC's on Red Hat Identity
>> Manager (IdM), which uses sudo, and locally engineered solutions.
>>
>> I personally detest sudo because it's like chmod 777 * - makes
>> everything work so much better, and software vendors can just drop in
>> their own sudo rules in /etc/sudoers.d/ and make magic happen without
>> you ever knowing what happened. Several times we've had to convert some
>> vendor's sudo rules to our own system's rules, and I ask the vendor "Why
>> do you have this rule?" Their answer: "We don't know." OFFS :(
>>
>> As far as sudo goes, it is included in the Center for Internet
>> Security's (CIS) Benchmarks, which is the embodiment of the information
>> security industry's best practices. I did some work for them for a
>> couple years, and every change (add/mod/delete) required consensus
>> approval from 80 organizations around the world, including thee letter
>> agencies in the US and abroad. Many/most auditors expect financial
>> institutions to follow this guide, or explain convincingly why not. So
>> every six months, we get to say: "We don't use sudo. Instead, we do
>> this." And then we get to do live demos of timed privileged access.
>> Haven't had a follow-on question in the last 8 years.
>>
>> (OT: I cringe at referring to CIS because of their collusion with the
>> Arizona Secretary of State and the Department of Homeland Security to
>> suppress people's First Amendment Right to Free Speech. Proof is in the
>> Elon Musk Twitter Dump. I do not have a copy of the email on my
>> computer. I generally don't tell people I did work for them - it's so
>> embarrassing. Effing Ratbastards.)
>>
>> So... back to the original question, as I was not able to find anything
>> saying Red Hat discourages sudo, nor was my favorite AI. Please toss me
>> a cookie...
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> George Toft
>>
>> On 6/26/2024 12:23 PM, Rusty Carruth via PLUG-discuss wrote:
>> > Actually, I'd like to start a bit of a discussion on this.
>> >
>> >
>> > First, I know that for some reason RedHat seems to think that sudo is
>> > bad/insecure.
>> >
>> > I'd like to know the logic there, as I think the argument FOR using
>> > sudo is MUCH stronger than any argument I've heard (which, admittedly,
>> > is pretty close to zero) AGAINST it.   Here's my thinking:
>> >
>> > Allowing users to become root via sudo gives you:
>> >
>> >  - VERY fine control over what programs a user can use as root
>> >
>> >  - The ability to remove admin privs (ability to run as root) from an
>> > individual WITHOUT having to change root password everywhere.
>> >
>> > Now, remember, RH is supposedly 'corporate friendly'.  As a
>> > corporation, that 2nd feature is well worth the price of admission,
>> > PLUS I can only allow certain admins to run certain programs? Very nice.
>> >
>> > So, for example, at my last place I allowed the 'tester' user to run
>> > fdisk as root, because they needed to partition the disk under test.
>> > In my case, and since the network that we ran on was totally isolated
>> > from the corporate network, I let fdisk be run without needing a
>> > password.  Oh, and if they messed up and fdisk'ed the boot partition,
>> > it was no big deal - I could recreate the machine from scratch (minus
>> > whatever data hadn't been copied off yet - which would only be their
>> > most recent run), in 10 minutes (which was about 2 minutes of my time,
>> > and 8 minutes of scripted 'dd' ;-)  However, if the test user wanted
>> > to become root using su, they had to enter the test user password.
>> >
>> > So, back to the original question - setting sudo to not require a
>> > password.  We should have asked, what program do you want to run as
>> > root without requiring a password?  How secure is your system? What
>> > else do you use it for?  Who has access?  etc, etc, etc.
>> >
>> > There's one other minor objection I have to the 'zero defense'
>> > statement below - the malicious thing you downloaded (and, I assume
>> > ran) has to be written to USE sudo in its attempt to break in, I
>> > believe, or it wouldn't matter HOW open your sudo was. (simply saying
>> > 'su - myscript' won't do it).
>> >
>> > And, if you're truly paranoid about stuff you download, you should:
>> >
>> > 1 - NEVER download something you don't have an excellent reason to
>> > believe is 'safe', and ALWAYS make sure you actually downloaded it
>> > from where you thought you did.
>> >
>> > 2 - For the TRULY paranoid, have a machine you use to download and
>> > test software on, which you can totally disconnect from your network
>> > (not JUST the internet), and which has NO confidential info, and which
>> > you can erase and rebuild without caring.  Run the downloaded stuff
>> > there, for a long time, until you're pretty sure it won't bite you.
>> >
>> > 3 - For the REALLY REALLY paranoid, don't download anything from
>> > anywhere, disconnect from the internet permanently, get high-tech
>> > locks for your doors, and wrap your house in a faraday cage!
>> >
>> > And probably don't leave the house....
>> >
>> > The point of number 3 is that there is always a risk, even with
>> > 'well-known' software, and as someone else said - they're watching you
>> > anyway.  The question is how 'safe' do you want to be? And how
>> > paranoid are you, really?
>> >
>> > Wow, talk about rabbit hole! ;-)
>> >
>> > 'Let the flames begin!' :-)
>> >
>> >
>> > On 6/25/24 18:50, Ryan Petris via PLUG-discuss wrote:
>> >>> wanted sudo not to require a password.
>> >> Please reconsider this... This is VERY BAD security practice. There's
>> >> basically zero defense if you happen to download/run something
>> >> malicious.
>> >>
>> >> On Tue, Jun 25, 2024, at 6:01 PM, Michael via PLUG-discuss wrote:
>> >>>   then I remember that a PLUG member mentioned ChatGPT being good at
>> >>> troubleshooting so I figured I'd give it a go. I sprint about half
>> >>> an hour asking it the wrong question but after that it took 2
>> >>> minutes. I wanted sudo not to require a password. it is wonderful!
>> >>> now I don't have to bug you guys. so it looks like this is the end
>> >>> of the user group unless you want to talk about OT stuff.
>> >>>
>> >>> --
>> >>> :-)~MIKE~(-:
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>> >>
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>
>
> --
> :-)~MIKE~(-:
>
>

-- 
:-)~MIKE~(-:
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