xfdm

[Jean-Philippe Guillemin]

Tim Tassonis wrote:
> Hi Auke
>
>   
>> that should not be the case... a login manager should run *as* root but 
>> certainly not be setuid root.
>>     
>
> Of course, you are right. But it doesn't really matter. The point is 
> that a user sits in front of a program that runs as root, but the user 
> is not root. That results in the same implications as a setuid program.
>   

Not really :
- A suid program can be launched by Bill and will run as if Bill was root.
- A 754 root:root program can only be started by root. It makes a big 
difference.

If the suid program has an exploitable buffer overflow problem : anybody 
getting unprivileged access to the computer can launch the suid program 
with appropriate shell code, and then he's root.

A program that can only be started by root is useless for somebody that 
... **wants** to be root ;)

JP