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8086
n00b
Joined: 12 Dec 2007
Posts: 52
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 Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 7:12 pm Post subject: Xorg setuid |
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| I was going through the list of SUID binaries on my system and noticed Xorg. Now, this binary being SUID has seemed very natural to me all these years I've been using Linux, but today it hit me: why does Xorg have to be SUID? I'm looking for technical details, but I'm too lazy to actually read the source. |
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bunder
Bodhisattva
Joined: 10 Apr 2004
Posts: 5923
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| Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 7:17 pm Post subject: |
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I believe it has something to do with using a login manager, but it could also be for direct hardware access to the video card/inputs, and again I could be waaay off. 
Moved from Off the Wall to Networking & Security.
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8086
n00b
Joined: 12 Dec 2007
Posts: 52
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| Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 7:19 pm Post subject: |
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I don't know if it's about the login manager, par example I don't use a login manager. I suppose hardware access is the cause, but I'm looking for details.
Sorry for postin in "off the wall" (as that seems to have been incorrect), I just thought this is more of a "General Linux" than Gentoo-specific kind of thing. |
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tSp
Apprentice
Joined: 19 Jan 2004
Posts: 214
Location: Maysville, KY
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| Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 1:56 pm Post subject: |
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Answering this just so it doesn't go unanswered completely but I wondered this myself some time ago and found this answer (I believe it is still correct today):
Copied and pasted this from http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/x.html#XFREE86-ROOT
| Quote: | Q.
Before, I was able to run XFree86 as a regular user. Why does it now say that I must be root?
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| Quote: |
A.
All X servers need to be run as root in order to get direct access to your video hardware. Older versions of XFree86 (<= 3.3.6) installed all bundled servers to be automatically run as root (setuid to root). This is obviously a security hazard because X servers are large, complicated programs. Newer versions of XFree86 do not install the servers setuid to root for just this reason.
Obviously, running an X server as the root user is not acceptable, nor a good idea security-wise. There are two ways to be able to use X as a regular user. The first is to use xdm or another display manager (e.g., kdm); the second is to use the Xwrapper.
xdm is a daemon that handles graphical logins. It is usually started at boot time, and is responsible for authenticating users and starting their sessions; it is essentially the graphical counterpart of getty( and login(1). For more information on xdm see the XFree86 documentation, and the the FAQ entry on it.
Xwrapper is the X server wrapper; it is a small utility to enable one to manually run an X server while maintaining reasonable safety. It performs some sanity checks on the command line arguments given, and if they pass, runs the appropriate X server. If you do not want to run a display manager for whatever reason, this is for you. If you have installed the complete ports collection, you can find the port in /usr/ports/x11/wrapper. |
And, there is also a way to disable setuid on Xorg binary during install, or manually after install. The downside is that you can't manually start xorg server (startkde from a bash shell for example as a normal user) without using a login manager (xdm, kdm, gdm).
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kernelOfTruth
Watchman
Joined: 20 Dec 2005
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Location: Vienna, Austria; Germany; hello world :)
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