Subject: permissions (faq-esque)

From: Philippe Oesch <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 08:22:39 +0100

Salut to everyone,

aargggh, it must be a faq, but after having checked everything (?), i
still don't know... here's my story:

i just upgraded to beta 18-18, an rpm build from suse-linux (germany)
dated 10.02.1999 that is. now it hasn't been possible to login even as
authorized user!

/etc/shells, /etc/ftpaccess, /etc/passwd look fine to me. There wasn't
that much to change, was there anyways? has anyone noticed problems with
the mentioned rpm, too?

besides: what's the exact function, layout of the ~ftp/etc/passwd file
(in contrast to /etc/passwd)? how about differences on a shadow
passworded system?

cheers & thanks, Philippe
-- 
Philippe Oesch, Dipl. Ing. ETH
PGP Key ID: 0x6F293ADC

---

From: Gregory A Lundberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 07:42:21 -0500 (EST)

> dated 10.02.1999 that is. now it hasn't been possible to login even as

Koos, here's the FAQ:

Q: I just upgraded and now nobody can log in.  It worked before.

A: Did you look in the system log?  The daemon will log the reason for the
   failure there.  It helps a *LOT* to know why.

   So, sight unseen, I'll guess you're upgrading to the VR version and, if
   you'd look, the syslog says 'not in any class'.

   That means you're using the old, unsafe wildcards on your class
   statements such as the following:

     class lcl real,guest,anonymous 127.*.*.*

   Which didn't really do what you though it did because an attacker from
   127.attacker.example.net would be miss-classes as 'lcl'.

   The VR update currently does not support this notation.  Use netmask or
   CIDR instead, as in either of the following:

     class lcl real,guest,anonymous 127.0.0.0/8

   or

     class lcl real,guest,anonymous 127.0.0.0:255.0.0.0

   The VR15 update will include support for the old wildcards as they were
   most commonly used (as in the example above), but without the errors
   which allowed matching unintended hosts.

-- 

Gregory A Lundberg              Senior Partner, VRnet Company
1441 Elmdale Drive              [email-masked]
Kettering, OH 45409-1615 USA    1-800-809-2195