Changing permissions of ps command

[Kishore]

Hi All,
I have a problem here, i had tried to change the prmissions of command
ps to 777 from 555. But the permissions of few other files are getting
changed. I had noticed that all these files are hard links and their
inode is same. Probably because of this it is creating the problem.
But, the output of each program is different.
Anyways, how do i set permission for only this files. Your suggestions
will be highly Appreciated.
Regards,
Kishore.

[John Howells]

Kishore wrote:

>
> Hi All,
> I have a problem here, i had tried to change the prmissions of command
> ps to 777 from 555. But the permissions of few other files are getting
> changed. I had noticed that all these files are hard links and their
> inode is same. Probably because of this it is creating the problem.
> But, the output of each program is different.
> Anyways, how do i set permission for only this files. Your suggestions
> will be highly Appreciated.

Go back a stage, and tell us what you are trying to achieve, and why you
think adding write permissions to ps for all users will help.

John Howells

[Nobody]

Please bare in mind that ps uses setuid bit.. for having root acces
Watch out with changing that..





"Kishore" <vkkumar@indiatimes.com> wrote in message
news:7d34fc3.0307232318.2d0da27f@posting.google.co m...

> Hi All,
> I have a problem here, i had tried to change the prmissions of command
> ps to 777 from 555. But the permissions of few other files are getting
> changed. I had noticed that all these files are hard links and their
> inode is same. Probably because of this it is creating the problem.
> But, the output of each program is different.
> Anyways, how do i set permission for only this files. Your suggestions
> will be highly Appreciated.
> Regards,
> Kishore.

[James Carlson]

"Nobody" <nobody@nix.nl> writes:

> Please bare in mind that ps uses setuid bit.. for having root acces
> Watch out with changing that..

/usr/ucb/ps does that (behind a wrapper) for access to environment
variables, but since /proc was integrated into Solaris, regular
/usr/bin/ps doesn't need to be setuid.

--
James Carlson, Solaris Networking <james.d.carlson@sun.com>
Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive 71.234W Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.497N Fax +1 781 442 1677

[James Carlson]

[email]vkkumar@indiatimes.com[/email] (Kishore) writes:

> I have a problem here, i had tried to change the prmissions of command
> ps to 777 from 555.

Uh ... why? Why would you want all users on your system to be able to
write to this file? That seems like a really bad thing to do.

> But the permissions of few other files are getting
> changed. I had noticed that all these files are hard links and their
> inode is same. Probably because of this it is creating the problem.
> But, the output of each program is different.

It's a bit of magic. ;-}

They're all hard links to 'isaexec' which looks at the kernel
architecture and runs `isainfo -k`/argv[0] -- so what really gets run
on a 64 bit kernel is /usr/bin/sparcv9/ps.

--
James Carlson, Solaris Networking <james.d.carlson@sun.com>
Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive 71.234W Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.497N Fax +1 781 442 1677

[ragnus2003]

Hi,
The system recognise different command (ps ,w ... there is 32 command or
more...)
by the name of the command and her directory.
To attribute permissions only to PS command who can copy this command and
after you
change permissions.
# rm ps
# cp w ps
# chmod 555 ps

bye...

"Kishore" <vkkumar@indiatimes.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
[email]7d34fc3.0307232318.2d0da27f@posting.google.com[/email]...

> Hi All,
> I have a problem here, i had tried to change the prmissions of command
> ps to 777 from 555. But the permissions of few other files are getting
> changed. I had noticed that all these files are hard links and their
> inode is same. Probably because of this it is creating the problem.
> But, the output of each program is different.
> Anyways, how do i set permission for only this files. Your suggestions
> will be highly Appreciated.
> Regards,
> Kishore.

[Kishore]

Hello All,

Thanks for your responses, It was just a coincidense i had mentioned
it as 777 for that sense it could be 550 also.
Anyways, i did a work arround for this. i.e.,
copied the file to some other file and moved back to orginal file name
( Then its inode number got changed, hence iam able to change the
permissions).
Do anybody anticipate any problem by doing like this.

Regards,
Kishore

[Chris Mattern]

Kishore wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> Thanks for your responses, It was just a coincidense i had mentioned
> it as 777 for that sense it could be 550 also.
> Anyways, i did a work arround for this. i.e.,
> copied the file to some other file and moved back to orginal file name
> ( Then its inode number got changed, hence iam able to change the
> permissions).
> Do anybody anticipate any problem by doing like this.
>

(slaps forehead) I was afraid he was going to have this flash of genius...

*Yes*, this is a problem. Rearranging basic system components at
random like this is *never* a good idea. Among other problems,
you have ensured that any attempts to patch or upgrade this part
of the system will break.

You have yet to explain *why* you want to change the permissions of
ps but not the permissions of the things hard-linked to it. Generally,
messing about like this in /usr/bin/ is bad idea unless you a) know
what you're doing and b) have a specific reason *why* you want to do
it.

Chris Mattern

[Chris Mattern]

ragnus2003 wrote:

> Hi,
> The system recognise different command (ps ,w ... there is 32 command or
> more...)
> by the name of the command and her directory.
> To attribute permissions only to PS command who can copy this command and
> after you
> change permissions.
> # rm ps
> # cp w ps
> # chmod 555 ps
>

ragnus, this is a really *bad* idea. Rearranging /usr/bin/ at random like this
makes patchadd cry.

Chris Mattern

[Barry Margolin]

In article <3F219323.3090306@gwu.edu>, Chris Mattern <syscjm@gwu.edu> wrote:

>You have yet to explain *why* you want to change the permissions of
>ps but not the permissions of the things hard-linked to it. Generally,
>messing about like this in /usr/bin/ is bad idea unless you a) know
>what you're doing and b) have a specific reason *why* you want to do
>it.

My guess is that he's trying to address the problem of sensitive data in
command line arguments, which other users can see with ps. So he's
restricting access to ps.

But since the *real* ps is the architecture-specific one that this
dispatches to, that's the program whose permissions he should be changing.

In general, if a program doesn't have setuid permission, removing access to
it won't solve a security issue like this, since anything it can do can be
done by a user-written program or script.

--
Barry Margolin, [email]barry.margolin@level3.com[/email]
Level(3), Woburn, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.

[Chris Thompson]

In article <HQgUa.406$0z4.71@news.level3.com>,
Barry Margolin <barry.margolin@level3.com> wrote:
[...]

>My guess is that he's trying to address the problem of sensitive data in
>command line arguments, which other users can see with ps. So he's
>restricting access to ps.

He is attempting to *restrict* access by changing the permissions to 777?
If so, I think he is in serious need of a Unix 101 remedial course ...

Chris Thompson
Email: cet1 [at] cam.ac.uk

[ragnus2003]

Yes i'ts true....
But what is the solution for this problem ???
if you set up permission to on comand and not hard links ???

Vince
"Chris Mattern" <syscjm@gwu.edu> a écrit dans le message de news:
[email]3F2193A4.6020108@gwu.edu[/email]...

> ragnus2003 wrote:

> > Hi,
> > The system recognise different command (ps ,w ... there is 32 command or
> > more...)
> > by the name of the command and her directory.
> > To attribute permissions only to PS command who can copy this command

and

> > after you
> > change permissions.
> > # rm ps
> > # cp w ps
> > # chmod 555 ps
> >

> ragnus, this is a really *bad* idea. Rearranging /usr/bin/ at random like

this

> makes patchadd cry.
>
> Chris Mattern
>

[Chris Mattern]

ragnus2003 wrote:

> Yes i'ts true....
> But what is the solution for this problem ???
> if you set up permission to on comand and not hard links ???
>

The answer is step back and ask, "Why are you trying to do this?"
The OP is (one hopes) not changing permissions for the sake of
changing permissions, but is rather trying to accomplish something.
Most likely, whatever he's trying to accomplish, trying to change
permissions is the Wrong Way, and he should be using a different
approach. Unfortunately, we've been unable to pry out of him
exactly what he's *really* trying to do.

Chris Mattern

[Thomas Schulz]

In article <3f2319e9$0$21133$626a54ce@news.free.fr>,
ragnus2003 <vincent.ragueneau@fnac.net> wrote:

>Yes i'ts true....
>But what is the solution for this problem ???
>if you set up permission to on comand and not hard links ???

It would be better to change the permissions on /usr/bin/sparcv*/ps
and leave /usr/bin/ps as a hard link to the wrapper program. That is
less likely to break patchadd.

>
>Vince
>"Chris Mattern" <syscjm@gwu.edu> a écrit dans le message de news:
>3F2193A4.6020108@gwu.edu...

>> ragnus2003 wrote:

>> > Hi,
>> > The system recognise different command (ps ,w ... there is 32 command or
>> > more...)
>> > by the name of the command and her directory.
>> > To attribute permissions only to PS command who can copy this command

>and

>> > after you
>> > change permissions.
>> > # rm ps
>> > # cp w ps
>> > # chmod 555 ps
>> >

>> ragnus, this is a really *bad* idea. Rearranging /usr/bin/ at random like

>this

>> makes patchadd cry.
>>
>> Chris Mattern

--
Tom Schulz
[email]schulz@adi.com[/email]