Quoting Haim Ashkenazi ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): > A friend just asked me this question and I got curious. say I'm > equipped with a linux laptop and some knowledge, I can walk into a > company that uses NIS, find out the settings (NISDOMAIN, free ip > address, etc...) and join their domain. now I can login as root on my > computer, su to any user and see/change/delete his files. is it that > easy?
On a typical NIS/NFS setup, it's pretty easy from a workstation to break into other files on the NFS shares. Breaking into the NIS/NFS master is and should be extremely non-trivial. NIS is typically used only inside organisations where random members of the public aren't given free rein to plug in their laptops and snoop. (Employees can try that, but have a lot to lose if caught at it.) Networks needing a greater degree of privacy and authentication can try AFS/Kerberos (entailing non-free server-end software). Substituting LDAP-SSL for NIS is arguably a step forward, but then NFS remains a problem (No Friggin' Security). -- Cheers, The genius of you Americans is that you never make Rick Moen clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves [EMAIL PROTECTED] that make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them that we are missing. --Gamel Abdel Nasser -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]