The dom0 portion of a XCP appliance is not
designed to operate as a standard multi user Unix SSH host. The only way
you can access the dom0 at all is if you already have the root password.
There are no other users in the dom0, so there is no reason to worry about file
permissions within the dom0 in the same manor that you typically would in a
multi user host. The only way you can steal the passwd file is if you
already know the root password. That is already secure enough.
-----Original Message-----
From: xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of A Cold Penguin
Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2011 3:46
PM
To: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Xen-users] Re: XCP:
Insecure Distro ?
>Sorry I wasn't completely clear.
>The reason why the use of /etc/passwd vs /etc/shadow is
>non-consequential is that XCP is a single user machine where all
>access is via UID 0.
>As such UNIX file permissions are effectively useless. For all intents
>and purposes 700 = 777 if you are always root and everything is owned
>by root yes?
....
>Does this further clarify why changing to /etc/shadow would be of no
>consequence?
No, if anything, it makes even less sense. If all the daemons are running as root, then the excuse that was put forward, that using shadow would stop the necessary daemons from being able to perform their synchronisation properly, is moot.
In the situation I am talking about here, root is often not used as a super-user. Although it would be understood that in the requirement of XCP this might be bypassed, the easy-access by keeping the password in a world-readable file would not be acceptable.
