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Bugtraq archives for 3rd quarter (Jul-Sep) 1994: Re: Is starting a user program on priv port via inetd dangerous ?

Re: Is starting a user program on priv port via inetd dangerous ?

Graham Toal (gtoalan-teallach.com)
Fri, 22 Jul 1994 14:15:02 +0100 

	My question is this: I own /home/dougmc/ircd/ircd, so I can change it
	in any way I want.  Is it possible to alter it in such a way that it
	takes this open fd to port 194 and abuses it, perhaps uses it to spoof
	a rlogin or rsh?

No, but what is theoretically possible is that someone could use ircd
to run arbitrary programs as the irc user.  Even if you run it as a special
user and in a chroot shell, there's a small possibility of abuse... for
instance, say you run nntpd and have some private local groups you don't
want exported, then if someone ran a proxy nntp port bouncer, they could
access your local groups because the call would appear to be from a local
user rather than the real remote host.

However, if the rest of your system is set up properly, what you suggest
above is no more dangerous than giving strangers a guest shell.  If you
allow outsiders on your machine anyway, it shouldn't be a problem.  If
you think your machine is only ever used by trusted insiders, it could
be a problem.

G