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Security Operating Systems BSD

r* Programs Being Removed from OpenBSD -current 139

Posted by timothy from the but-it's-still-an-important-letter dept.
moonboy writes: "This post over at OpenBSD Journal tells of the r* programs (rsh, rlogin, rcopy, etc) being removed from the -current tree. Can Telnet and FTP be far behind? I say good riddance."
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r* Programs Being Removed from OpenBSD -current More

r* Programs Being Removed from OpenBSD -current

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  • Removing redundant, unnecessary, and potentially dangerous programs from the distro is a really good idea.

    Creating the symlinks just adds complexity to a system that doesn't need it.
    • Absolutely, I'm surprised they're still there. And, as another poster pointed out, telnet and (to a lesser extent) ftp have to be next on the chopping block. Makes more sense than Perl being ripped from FreeBSD anyway.

      Dave
      • I don't know. I've always had misgivings about having non-compiled (yes, I know Perl is a compiled language) scripts as system tools. Removing Perl-based scripts is really a good step because it reduces the number of volatile dependencies by one.

        Now removing Perl altogether? I don't think that's a great idea at all. But I haven't read the other article yet, so I can't comment.

      • Re:BSD is not dying, it's busy cleaning (Score:5, Interesting)

        by sigwinch ( 115375 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @11:46PM (#3514699) Homepage
        And, as another poster pointed out, telnet and (to a lesser extent) ftp have to be next on the chopping block.
        I disagree. FTP is a fine way to serve files to anonymous clients. A lot of data traffic simply doesn't benefit (much) from security. Unless you are going to replace it with HTTP over SSL and institute a person-to-person key fingerprint distribution process, you might as well keep using FTP.

        As for telnet, using it to run login shells is idiocy, but it's the only standardized way to run interactive services. It comes disabled by default, so including it is not a security risk. And when you someday need a little interactive network program *right now*, it's damn convenient. E.g., if you needed to stick a load monitor on your database server, just write a little program that talks on standard input and output, and tell telnet to use it instead of a shell. Instant results, little risk of breaking anything, and any client can access it.

    • Removing redundant, ridiculous, rotten riffraff rocks.

      I think.

  • BSD seems to be taking the necesary steps to reduce needless and mostly unused programs. Something linux distro's should also try doing.

  • wow, so late (Score:1, Redundant)

    by tps12 ( 105590 )
    I would have expected this to happen a lot earlier, given the well-known security problems with these utilities.

    But, better late than never, I s'pose.

  • Darwin? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by linuxbert ( 78156 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @10:54PM (#3514478) Homepage Journal
    hmm, im not very familier with bsd and darwin developments, but i wonder if apple will follow suit.
    i just checked my 10.2.4 and it has rlogin, and perl. Perl is quite usefull, but i agree it shouldnt be part of a default install. the rtools are a big risk, and rightly should be gotten rid of. with ssh and secure versions of most of these r tools, there existance is moot.

    Apple prides itself on the power of unix, simplicity of a mac, and i think it works great. (havent touched my pc in weeks) but i question if a desktop os really needs the rtools.

  • Something has been lost here... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by seraphim via ( 531377 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2002 @12:17AM (#3514795)
    I believe something has eluded the 'BSD is dying crowd' and the 'Perl is winbest' crowd.

    For starters, BSD is not dying in my eyes. Linux is great, I love it, but it is seriously bloated. 'But seraphim,' you say, 'you are a fag man for thinking these thingz.' I have recently bought SuSE 8.0 Pro. It is terribly bloated. Its really good for a desktop machine, but for a down and dirty linux box, its just not there. I have also used Redhat 7.0-7.2. They are extremely bloated as well. Not quite to the M$ extreme, but still dangerous. Slackware is the only linux I have used that gets me feeling that I am involved in the console and that its working with me, rather than me forcing it to do things. BSD is a down and dirty OS. Its great for just digging your teeth in and tearing into. It is not your fancy pants linux distro or desktop GUI OS (i leave that up to my new iMac :D
    And on the issue of Perl. Perl is not being taken out of FreeBSD. It has not been rebuked by the FreeBSD staff and shunned to the 9th circle of hell. It is, however, not included into the base install. Saving, around 40mb, i believe. Now you say 'You silly fagtrot, thats not that much.' Well, yes and no. Yes it isnt a lot when you are running BSD on a AMD 2100XP with a 80g hard drive. I , however, run my BSD on a 486 with a 800mb hard drive. Space is key to me. If i want to install perl, i simply say, 'Hey there BSD, install me some perl.' Otherwise i dont really need it.

    Hopefully this will clear some things up.
    • From: owner-freebsd-announce@FreeBSD.ORG
      [mailto:owner- freebsd-announce@FreeBSD.ORG] On Behalf Of Mark Murray
      Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 9:44 AM
      To: announce@freebsd.org
      Subject: Perl5 is leaving the base system for 5.0 and after!

      Hello folks!

      It has been decided after some debate to remove Perl5 from the "Base FreeBSD" sources. This decision was not taken lightly, and was taken in consultation with (but not seeking the approval of) the perl5 developer community.

      There are 2 main reasons for this:

      1) Perl5 is getting larger very fast, and FreeBSD cannot afford the time and space to build and maintain it.

      2) Upgrading the "base perl" is a nightmare that regularly breaks upgrades and cross-builds, to the intense annoyance of the FreeBSD developer community.

      Speaking as the "Perl5 guy", keeping FreeBSD's "base perl" up to date was hellish, and folks who wish a return to that state should please consider doing this work in my place. BEWARE! This job is not trivial!

      PERL IS NOT BEING OSTRACISED! FreeBSD is not taking this action because of any dispute between the FreeBSD community and the Perl community - such a dispute DOES NOT EXIST! In fact, the Perl community have been exemplary in their attempts to understand the problem, and in their proposals to deal with it. FreeBSD DOES NOT HATE PERL!

      Some time in the future, perl may be split in half, such that the core language and the standard libraries may be separately installed. In such a case, FreeBSD might be in a position to better deal with the problem of the very large perl libraries. Such splitting will be done by the perl community, NOT by us, although we will be taking note.

      In the meanwhile, the Perl5 Port will continue to be available, and continued discussion indicates that there is very substantial support for it to be installed by default (or near-default) by sysinstall.

      This will result in a FreeBSD that has effectively the same Perl5 that is kept up-to-date in ports, rather than the one that is left to rot in STABLE.

      This update will _NOT_ be MFCed. The first FreeBSD that has no perl in the default sources will be 5.0-RELEASE, when that is released at the end of this year. FreeBSD-4.n will continue with the perl that it currently has.

      The ports system will continue to support Perl5.

      M
      --
      o Mark Murray
      \_
      O.\_ Warning: this .sig is umop ap!sdn

      This is the moderated mailing list freebsd-announce.
      The list contains announcements of new FreeBSD capabilities,
      important events and project milestones.
      See also the FreeBSD Web pages at http://www.freebsd.org [freebsd.org]

    • I have to say it every so often: Try Debian. Better packaging system than RedHat and its offspring, and very flexible, runs on several archs (I'm on a PPC system running Debian right now). It can be stripped down a lot, so you don't have to feel like you're fighting the OS to do what you want.

    • Re:Something has been lost here... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      For sake of argument, I'll assume this isn't a troll for now ... apparently enough moderators did.

      For starters, BSD is not dying in my eyes. Linux is great, I love it, but it is seriously bloated.

      You make this statement, and never back it up with evidence. You state cursory observations based on your experiences with two distributions of Linux. You do not even go into detail--or even offer a superficial explanation--as to why you feel these are bloated. You have seemingly just chosen a) the largest [7 CDs or a DVD] distribution, SuSE, and b) RedHat which seems to be the most common target for abuse (some of it deserved, I could grant) -- however, you do not offer any reason why you feel these are bloated.

      'But seraphim,' you say, 'you are a fag man for thinking these thingz.' I have recently bought SuSE 8.0 Pro. It is terribly bloated.

      I am running SuSE 7.1 on all of my Linux machines now -- some of them are still stock installs, some just updated using Yast, and two of them don't look anything like SuSE anymore excepting Yast and a couple other things I've kept around. One, my laptop, doesn't look anything like SuSE at all--not even Yast [SuSE's installer/configurer/auto-updater]. The reason I chose SuSE was because of the number of included programs in the distro, which, when you're on a dialup connection, saves a lot of headache and time. Things I use often, and need the latest version, I might still go out and get their package/source but for most things, I no longer need to. Just because they provide you with 7 CDs worth of data [four binary, three source I think] doesn't mean that you have to install everything. This is often the complaint with MSWin--forced install.

      My laptop has SuSE's "minimal" install, with the addition of selections from the "developers" package (by default minimal doesn't install gcc or make). I've built it up from there. I've even built up a SuSE deb based system at one point ... which I don't really feel like doing again...

      Its really good for a desktop machine, but for a down and dirty linux box, its just not there. I have also used Redhat 7.0-7.2. They are extremely bloated as well. Not quite to the M$ extreme, but still dangerous.

      I have no clue what you mean by "dangerous" (aside from some security issues in the default RH installs, granted ...)

      I still do not know what you consider "bloat" however. Many Linux distros are trying to make their system usable on the desktop, hence SuSE's "default with Office" option. As stated, SuSE has other options such as "minimal" "default" "full" and options to set it up as a server config by default, and very easy to use individual package selection during install [and after]. If you don't want the glitz--such as kde and gnome--don't install it, I haven't. The same is available for BSD systems as well [I have KDE installed on a P120 Free box which is set up for guest access in my house].

      Slackware is the only linux I have used that gets me feeling that I am involved in the console and that its working with me, rather than me forcing it to do things.

      I also suggest Debian, unless you're adversed to popular package management methods. I've heard more than one person remark that debian is little more than FreeBSD with a Linux kernel. However, no Linux system prevents you from accessing the underlying configuration files (which is what I can only assume you mean) or just running from a terminal. I've heard bad things about Lycoris in this respect, but they make it clear that's not what they're trying for--i assume once it's installed though you've got access to everything just like everything else, including on the Zaurus.

      Distros like SuSE and RH are just offering a centralized configuration tool which you can choose to use. I know SuSE's works in console mode just as well as in X, and isn't all that different from /sys/stand on Free.

      BSD is a down and dirty OS. Its great for just digging your teeth in and tearing into. It is not your fancy pants linux distro or desktop GUI OS (i leave that up to my new iMac :D

      You can also try Debian or Yellow Dog on your iMac. SuSE also runs well, I'm told. I have no experience with the PPC version of any of them however.

      And on the issue of Perl. Perl is not being taken out of FreeBSD. It has not been rebuked by the FreeBSD staff and shunned to the 9th circle of hell. It is, however, not included into the base install. Saving, around 40mb, i believe. Now you say 'You silly fagtrot, thats not that much.' Well, yes and no. Yes it isnt a lot when you are running BSD on a AMD 2100XP with a 80g hard drive.
      I , however, run my BSD on a 486 with a 800mb hard drive. Space is key to me. If i want to install perl, i simply say, 'Hey there BSD, install me some perl.' Otherwise i dont really need it.

      For the record, up until a couple years ago, I was running an old version of RH on a 386 without any problems. That's what the Linux kernel was designed for, and that's still what even the latest RH states as minimum system requirements.

      Hopefully this will clear some things up.

      I think it clears it up nicely. You sir, are a troll.

  • FTP: Useful for downloading the latest and greatest. Easily setup from packages if needed (special purpose). See you later, maybe.

    RSH: Haven't used it in years. Good bye.

    Telnet: Client useful for accessing networking equipment in a secure environment. Haven't run the daemon on my boxes in years. Good bye.

    This is a good day for security...
    • FTP: I really hate this protocol, but it's still
      standard and will be in years.
      RSH: Haven't ever used.
      Telnet: Uhm... let me say a bit more:
      you have to differentiate between the services
      (daemons) and the clients. Running telnetd is
      bad, and for the case spoken in some of the
      first posts, you can write a daemon using
      netcat in shell if you want, it takes ten lines or so.
      But the client is good for, for example, participiating
      in MUDs (I, however, use ssfe(1local) from the net/sirc
      port in combination with netcat), or to quickly test
      net services such as HTTP, SMTP, etc. or even chatting
      in IRC (not that this couldn't be entirely taken over
      by netcat, but no GNU OS I know of _has_ our (with IPv6)
      netcat).

  • Hmmm, mixed feelings on this...... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jsimon12 ( 207119 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2002 @01:42AM (#3515105) Homepage
    At first when I read this I was a little against it, now that I thought about it I am all for it, too many people just leave services open and get hacked. So the less that is loaded the less that can be hacked.

    If you want FTP, download the latest version of ProFTPd or Wu-FTPd and load those, same with Apache.
    • WU-FTPd is the worst of the insecure FTP servers. Use SCP, SFTP, or at least kerberized FTP.
      • You are suggesting using scp, sftp or encrypted/key'd ftp for an anonymous server? Somewhat excessive don't you think? I agree I wouldn't use it for anything involving system passwords but unencrypted ftp still has a place in bulk file distribution. As for Wu-ftpd being the worst? I would have to say it isn't that bad, and has some features pro-ftpd doesn't. Just keep up with your patches and things aren't that bad.
        • If you want to keep patching your OS constantly, you should use Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, now with IIS 5.0 for secure, advanced HTTP and FTP serving!

          • Not sure what universe you live in but you need to keep up on patches on any OS you use, whether it is OpenBSD/Solaris/Linux/Winblows etc etc etc. Granted most Unices don't need the level of patching that a Winblows box needs but it is a good admin who keeps his/her eyes open for issues that need to be resolved. But if that isn't your method for admining would you mind posting the IP's for boxes you manage, I need something to root ;)
  • No one in their right mind would use one of the
    r* tools or telnet to access a box across the
    internet. However , for internal connections withing a large organisation they are *vital*.
    Anyone who has worked in a large unix shop (I work in a multinational bank) knows that rlogin
    and telnet are used all the time to access the various servers over the LAN and VPN , rsh is also
    used to do a shell script type of RPC. Getting rid of these tools demonstrates what I've always
    thought about OpenBSD , its just a toy to amuse
    Theo thats not really aiming at the high end market but rather just as a web server or other
    ISP type role. Fine , if thats what they want but
    it'll hardly make much difference as their user base is so small it hardly registers anyway.
    Bye bye OpenBSD.
    • Well, you could use ssh inside your shell scripts, just use DSA or RSA for authentication. You could say that it would be a pain to install OpenSSH (or any other SSH, FTM) on every system inside your net, and I agree with that. *BUT* I don't recommend using non-encrypted protocols even inside a secure network, just because it's never really as secure as we'd like it to be, there's always someone with DSniff and such.
      In a large unix shop I consulted for, the directors said "we want security", to which I replied "ok, but there are implications...". Long story short, they changed every script they had to comply with the new security policy: no unencrypted sensitive data. And that means, no telnet, no r* tools, no ftp, et al.

    • Re:A very dumb idea (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      And you're a stupid retard.
    • Poo poo on you...

      So now you hate OpenBSD because they're making you type pkgadd -v ftpd.tar.gz or whatever? Whaaa...

      You have to install Emacs on it FCS! It aims to be an OS that is built from the ground up on each system, so that you have not the bloat. Also you are guaranteed to know about all the services by the time you get finished setting up a BSD box...

      'Bye bye OpenBSD', what a tool.
      • You honestly think that big companies that have hundreds if not thousands of servers and
        literally use terrabyte disks give a flying fuck about saving a few hundred K of disk space
        on tools that they find pretty damn essential and will have to install anyway. Grow up.
    • Anyone who has worked in a large unix shop knows that the most dangerous security problem is internal abuse. A disgruntled coder, or just someone wanting to mess around could cause huge amounts of trouble in your company. And in a MULTINATIONAL BANK??? You are telnetting and rsh'ing around your servers? Tell me where to send my resume please - I want a job there.
      • Why would a disgruntled coder bother with packet sniffing? Coders have to have access to the boxes
        to do their work, they could do far more damager by just trashing the databases. Guess you've
        never worked in a big company have you?
        • If you have ever worked in a large company, you might know that not all coders have access to everything. That is typically how a *small* company works. Try harder next time.
          • Really? Thats funny because in the last few companies (all large , all banks) I've worked
            in coders have had access to the production machines as well since the team that wrote the
            code also did the support.

            Next...
        • Why would a disgruntled coder bother with packet sniffing?

          Why? Why don't you think about it for a while.

          Accountability. Disgruntled worker has God privs across a bunch of mission critical servers (critical to not only the business but to customers in a bank scenario). Servers are in a secure room with video surveilance and the syslog server and line printers are in another secure room which few people have access to or are even aware of all together.

          Our poor disgruntled worker would be STUPID BEYOND BELIEF to fuck with any server or network gear in that environment with either his ugly head on video tape or his username plastered all over syslog printouts that he can't get to...

          However, this lucky bastard has YOU as a boss and since you called the shots you said, "ah to hell with secure tools, we'll just keeping using the good old r* tools since we trust our staff and our network is behind a nice black firewall!".

          So, our disgruntled worker is smarter than you, he sniffs some passwords of people he never liked and a few he now no longer likes...

          Now those servers that have been dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda have YOUR name printed on the syslog printouts instead of his.

          Guess you've never worked in a big company have you?

          So what position do you hold at this bank? Teller?

    • No one in their right mind would use one of the r* tools or telnet to access a box across the internet. However , for internal connections withing a large organisation they are *vital*.

      Vital, as if there is no better alternative?

      With the trend of outsourcing IT HR, bringing IN lots of potentially untrustworthy staff and putting OUT very clued up staff who are now very disgruntled, I would guess that previously already endangered LANS are now becoming even more threatened.

      Staff on the way out will be sniffing and key logging their peers, bosses and the new contractors and the new contractors don't have much to loose either, being just another contractor.

      Anyone who has worked in a large unix shop (I work in a multinational bank)

      I know a very large multinational bank which uses OpenBSD on it's firewalls.

      knows that rlogin and telnet are used all the time to access the various servers over the LAN and VPN ,

      So the fact that security is usually lacking somehow makes the use of plain text OK within a LAN environment?

      Bye bye OpenBSD.

      Bye bye DickHEAD.

      • Oh get real. Go get a real job and then get back to me , you obviously have no clue what its like
        working in a place that has upwards of a thousand servers where the developers have to have access
        to the boxes anyway to do their work.

        PS: A firewall is connected to the internet , read what I wrote before you try to back up your
        lame repost with the kiddies fallback of being insulting.
        • I work for a major Stock Exchange. We have seperate physical networks for staff, production, development and security.

          The production servers are usually accessed via their serial console ports via console servers which are only connected to the security network. Few people have physical or logical access to that network and those servers. Baring that, ssh and scp is the norm where at all possible.

          Thanks for letting me know the function of firewalls (my bread and butter).

          However, I am merely pointing out, that plain text within a LAN is still very dangerous, especially within an org that has a lot to protect. It removes accountability from the staff because their usernames and passwords cannot be considered completely safe from other staff who may have similar privs.

          OpenBSD , its just a toy to amuse Theo thats not really aiming at the high end market but rather just as a web server or other ISP type role.

          How does removing insecure tools from an OS that focuses on security make that OS a toy? You can always put it back for Christs sake.

          The fact is, that insecure tools are insecure on the internet and within corporate LANS.

          • Agreed. Wholeheartedly.

            If you're going to use plaintext tools, you shouldn't even bother having seperate user accounts. Make one user account called "guest" with a null password. It's easier that way, ad it's effectively what you're doing when you use insecure protocols internaly.

            Of course, if you're using 100% IPSec internally, then anythign that uses passwords for authentication should be fine. However, IIRC, rsh just checks the source port of the packet and then balieves that you are who you claimto be with absolutely no authentication. IPSec can't help you there.

    • That is nonsense.

      My wife works for a large insurance company that handles medical claims. When she was home sick, she simply rsh'd into the companies terminal server from our earthlink account!

      She was not 'rooted' or hacked. In fact, her connection was much faster than the useless VPN that I am forced to use.
    • So if your network is compromised then you get to watch as passwords are grabbed and machines are compromised. Great company. I won't be banking there.

      I work for a large bank, it's probably the biggest one in the US, and not only are these things discouraged, but people lose their jobs if they don't remove them after they have been told to.

      As for openbsd, or any os for that matter, being a toy to amuse....a tool is a tool, it does not decide how it is used.

  • Symbolic Importance (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2002 @08:24AM (#3516355) Homepage Journal

    I doubt anyone smart enough to install and run OpenBSD is going to be stupid enough to run the r suite of utilities.

    But I have to pause in remembrance, because, after all, they are the Berkeley r-suite.

    I used them for many years, alongside telnet and ftp, back in the 1980's when 4.2BSD was distributed with my computer. Anyone remember doing tilde escapes to pop back to the local machine?

    Even though their security model is insufficient in this present day and age, they really helped to pave the way in showing how remote computers could be accessed in a convenient and powerful way.

    It's fitting that a BSD will be the first to retire this venerable set of programs.

    R.I.P., r-suite.


    • Elegant tools for a more civilized age.

    • You can still do tilde escapes in ssh or at least openssh.

      fox:~ % ~?
      Supported escape sequences:
      ~. - terminate connection
      ~R - Request rekey (SSH protocol 2 only)
      ~^Z - suspend ssh
      ~# - list forwarded connections
      ~& - background ssh (when waiting for connections to terminate)
      ~? - this message
      ~~ - send the escape character by typing it twice
      (Note that escapes are only recognized immediately after newline.)

      • You can still do tilde escapes in ssh or at least openssh.

        Most of my usage has been on X displays running multiple virtual terminal sessions.

        In the old days, on a single green screen CRT, I had a lot more need for quickly switching sessions in the same terminal window, using tilde escapes and sending jobs into background, etc. Not so much anymore, though.

      • You can still do tilde escapes in ssh or at least openssh.

        Also works with ssh.com's ssh:

        ssh: SSH Secure Shell 3.1.0 (non-commercial version) on sparc-sun-solaris2.8
        Supported escape sequences:
        ~. - terminate connection
        ~^Z - suspend ssh
        ~# - list forwarded connections
        ~- - disable escape character uncancellably
        ~? - this message
        ~~ - send the escape character by typing it twice
        ~V - dump version information to stderr
        ~s - dump statistics and connection information to stderr
        ~r - initiate rekey immediately with old algorithms (ie. changes
        encryption and integrity keys)
        ~l - go to line mode (keystrokes are gathered to an internal
        buffer, and will be output all at once when you enter
        a newline)
        (Note that escapes are only recognized immediately after newline.)

        I suspend sessions all the time. Lots of fun when you bounce around hosts, eg, ssh from A to B, from B to C, from C to D, etc. You have to remember to hit ~ the correct number of times to suspend to the right machine.

    • I don't plan to be picky, but in fact there are some linux distros out there that don't have the r- suite in their base install. Try gentoo [gentoo.org] for example.

      regards
      rmstar
    • Tilde escapes still work in the s* programs. I often use ~. to get out of timed out ssh sessions...

  • No big deal... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by j-turkey ( 187775 )
    Its about time that these tools be phased out -- the services have been shut off (by default) in just about every *nix distribution on the market over the last decade. Someone needs to pioneer killing them -- and a strip-down default install like OpenBSD seems to be the appropriate place to do that.

    There's a number of "what about me" folks out there -- who have some mitigating circumstance to need those tools (see here [sigmasoft.com]). It seems that these folks are just speaking out to hear themselves speak. Its not like these services are being excluded from the ports tree. Even if they were, you can still grab the source and build it yourself -- hell, there are still binary packages out there that you can just build.

    Lastly, as stated in the thread here [sigmasoft.com], its just the servers that are getting the axe, the clients stay...so all of the valuable tools (telnet, rlogin, etc) aren't going away.


    -Turkey

  • Thank Fordness... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fooguy ( 237418 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2002 @01:16PM (#3518203) Homepage
    It's about time.

    I'm an OpenBSD user, and a Perl advocate. I love Perl, but not everyone does. Not everyone needs it, just like not everyone needs Python or tcl/tk.

    OpenBSD is the closest thing I've seen to an operating system in a long time. When I install an OS, I want to chose what to turn on, not hope I turned off everything I didn't need. I want to know dozens of eyes have done their best to be sure the OS is secure.

    The ports collection is far better than any package management tool I've used (Sun pkgadd, Linux RPM). Not only is it good, but OpenBSD's is the best of any BSD I've used (Free and Net) because it's clean. There is only a tiny chance a port you try and build won't work (::leering at FreeBSD::) and it's so easy that I don't mind doing a make;make install to get Perl.

    All that said, Theo's recent rant about r* utils makes perfect sense. Get rid of it!

    And while we're at it, toss telnet out with the bathwater. Anyone who isn't using ssh to connect to a remote machine is *begging* to get owned. The only way some people are going to use secure tools is if we force them to. I know at work until I turn telnet off people will use that over ssh because it's familiar, because they don't want to upgrade the 100 year old version of QVTTerm they have.

    As for FTP - don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. I've been using scp for so long I get physically ill when I see this:

    ftp>

    Yeah it works, but it's a gaping hole. If people want it, fine, but build the daemon you want from the ports collection. The idea of inetd housing all these "critical" services is just an invite to get owned.

    I'm not a huge security nut (my boss won't use a grocery store card because his "marketing data is worth more than what they give me"), but in the battle for securie systems, we are losing! Servers here at work are breeding like rabbits, and everyone is not as savy as you and I. We need to do whatever we can to nudge them in the right direction, not just for their own sake, but for everyones sake.

    • Re:Thank Fordness... (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The only time I was ever "0wned", it was via the SSH server. So I'm less than sanguine about its security.

  • Don't lose telnet. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dsb3 ( 129585 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2002 @05:22PM (#3520045) Homepage Journal
    I use telnet more often than I use ssh.

    Ssh - I use for connecting to other machines.
    Telnet - I use for testing webservers, mail servers, news servers, testing whether ssh servers are alive and what version they're running, etc etc.

    Just because the telnet DAEMON is undesirable doesn't mean the client is so too.
    • I always use Netcat [atstake.com] or one of its variants (such as OpenBSD's obnc or cryptcat, say) to do that sort of thing, and a number of other little wierdnesses besides. Certainly it isn't as smart as telnet, but it does the jobs I need it to and more besides.
      • That's a good point. I could (with effort, and perhaps some self-hypnotism) start to type n-e-t-c-a-t instead of t-e-l-n-e-t. After all, it's only taken me a year to start typing h-o-s-t instead of n-s-l-o-o-k-u-p :-)

        • I could (with effort, and perhaps some self-hypnotism) start to type n-e-t-c-a-t

          The name of the command is actually "nc" - like any proper unix tool it has a terse, easy-to-chord-type name ("n" and "c" are on different fingers :)

  • they need to make sure... (Score:4, Funny)

    by msouth ( 10321 ) on Wednesday May 15, 2002 @10:45AM (#3523311) Homepage Journal
    ...that they remove "rm" last.

  • Let us try to separate the security matters.
    A protocol can be insecure - say if it provides no reliable means of authentication, or if it transmits all information in clear text.
    Implementations of a secure protocol can be insecure - that is, buggy -, and implementations of insecure protocols can do their best not to add any insecurity.

    BSD is not dead, nor is it dying.

    The r-tools are insecure protocols, since they transfer sensible information in clear text. I am not for enabling the daemons by default installs.
    But I don't think they should be removed.
    The clients should definately not be removed, in my opinion, I do not see any insecurity in having an rlogin client installed.

    A system will not be much more secure than its admin is capable. Security has always been a compromise.

    I believe in security, I appreciate OpenBSD's security code auditing teams, yet OpenBSD's claim "Four years without a remote root security hole in the default install!" does not impress me too much. If the default install is with everything disabled, or configured in some rather restricted way, it is not much of worth to most. People talk all the time about network security, disabling services and daemons, etc. Let us remember the more common type of security problems still, local. Most systems serve users. Local security is just as important, if not more. And not all holes immediately give superuser access to the exploiter, yet they are dangerous. Would it have been "4 years without an exploitable security problem in the OpenBSD code base", this would mean quite more already.

    So I think telnet, rlogin, rsh, rexec and ftp should be left in. telnetd, rlogind, rshd, rexecd, and ftpd should also be left in, just disabled by default in inetd, administrators will enable those they need as they know what they are doing.
    The code of all those should be audited just like the rest of the distribution. Data being transmitted as plain text is not a security hole in the system. It is known to the admin, just as it is known that passwords can be guessed brute-force.

    In an internal academic/corporate network, usually some hosts are trusted, and some users are. Each organization has its security policy, describing how to decide what is trusted. If an host is trusted, the route from it is just as trusted. No encryption will help here. Sometimes rhosts based authentication bypassing is useful.

    Encryption won't solve everything. It is a bad illusion for anyone that if the communication is encrypted, it can suddenly be all 100% trusted and safe. A well administered site ran by competent admins and with a good security policy, I would trust much more than a site where ssh and encryption is trusted for everything.

    Also, as always, there is a point of interoperability, and compatibility. You cannot switch all your organization, definately not all the environment around it, to different protocols and utilities that easily, and with the Internet attached, it gets even more difficult.
    If you think that all utilities/work methods can be secured just by replacing them like this, it isn't so easy.
    I am pro advancement, and I think changing things, switching to more secure protocols/systems, is all a good idea, but at its time, as the site's administrators consider it... It cannot be done at once, and should not be done by the maintainers of the distribution.

    As for Perl on FreeBSD, I'm very much for it. Most of the BSD systems I use are FreeBSD, then BSDi BSD/OS... Saving a few tenths of megabytes in the distribution, just as simplifying the build and installation process is a good step, Perl is nowhere as standard for a network as the r-tools are, and the system's core scripts/tools shouldn't depend on it. Where it is wanted, install it from the ports tree, or just build it from plain sources...

    It might be good idea if the r-tools could be just a backward compatibility part of the ssh stuff... So say, ftp, unless given a specific flag, will by default do sftp, and resort to old style ftp only if that failes, and rsh will be ssh, which will also support the rsh/rlogin/etc. protocols...

    All that, though, is just my 2^-2 cent...

  • The problem when rsh and ftp are removed, is that there is no way to transfer files at wire speed. ssh is too slow for 100Mbit networks, let alone gigabit. Is there any software that solves this problem, perhaps with secure authentication and protection against alteration of the data stream?
  • Pulling Perl from the base package will limit the flexibility for many of the set up scripts but I can see where the size of Perl has gotten way out of hand. Maybe they should look at mini-perl (the one perl uses to configure its self) might be worth considering.

    The R commands need to go away but I'm wondering if the best option is to fix them properly. The idea here is to put together a library (maybe a fork of getops) so that you can take most standard programs that use stdio and make r versions of them by linking to the proper library. This way things like rmt (remote mag tape) and its friends restore and dump would all still work in a modern enviroment. There is no current version of dump or restore that works the way old rmt versions do and most of us still like to do backups from time to time.
  • While i admit that the r* tools aren`t designed with security in mind, and their use should be discouraged.. there ARE cases where they are very usefull. For instance, i run a network of a large number of unix machines of differing flavours.. and the r* tools are standard on all of them.
    So usually i end up using rcp to download files to a new machine from a distribution server, rcp dist@ip:/files/bleh . is much easier than ftping or using scp, and since the access is download-only and anonymous.. i`m not really bothered about someone else sniffing the connection. r* is also much faster an s*, since there is no encryption overhead... downloading large files over a 100mbit switched lan where the fileserver is a p200, is certainly a LOT quicker.

    FTP/Telnet DEFINATELY should not be removed, the telnet command has far more uses than connecting to dedicated telnet servers, for instance you can use it to test other text-based protocols like smtp, http and pop3.
    FTP also, like rcp.. is very usefull for file distribution.. If you have files you want people to access easily, such as opensource software.. it makes sense to use a low overhead protocol like ftp, rather than an encryption-heavy protocol. Afterall, who is going to bother sniffing your traffic if they can just download the files themselves anyway?
  • That's a really good idea.... by removing routed from the system, the chances of a remote exploit go down significantly.

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