Re: nidump on OS X

["John C. Welch" <jwelch () MIT EDU>]

On 09/15/2002 17:28, "Dale Harris" <rodmur () maybe org> wrote:

> Basically any normal user can get a dump of the passwd file and attempt
> brute force attacks on the encrypted passwds, it includes the root passwd.
>
> This problem has been around for well over a year, but Apple ignores it:
>
> http://www.securitytracker.com/alerts/2001/Jul/1001946.html
> http://online.securityfocus.com/archive/1/211718
> Dale Harris <rodmur () maybe org>
> However Apple hasn't seemed to bother addressing it yet since it still
> persists
> in OS X.2 (Jaguar).  You'd think they might have taken the opportunity to fix
> this problem with a new major release.

It's not a case of ignoring it. It's a case of it's been around since
NetInfo came out. It's *far* older than a year. But NetInfo is buggy,
non-standard, poorly documented and understood, and only runs on OS X/*Step
systems unless you get a connector from PADL.

If you look at 10.2, they are *heavily* moving to LDAP v3, which handles
this sort of thing better, but unfortunately, it has to, for now, tie into
NetInfo. Netinfo is bound at a very low level to the OS, and extracting it
correctly will not happen quickly.

> This obviously isn't such a big problem when you are dealing with only
> limited access desktop systems, but Xserve exists now, and I would think
> it'd be a bigger concern.  Course you could always chmod 700 nidump.

It's an issue with NetInfo, not any one utility.

john

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John C. Welch
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