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Xref: sserve comp.sys.powerpc:31039 comp.sys.intel:27843 comp.os.misc:3648 comp.unix.bsd:15798 comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit:7952 comp.unix.sys5.r4:8998 comp.unix.misc:15381 comp.os.linux.development:22000 comp.os.linux.misc:32709 comp.os.linux.misc:32710 comp.os.386bsd.development:2959 comp.os.386bsd.misc:4635 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!bruce.cs.monash.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msunews!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!psuvax1!psuvax1.cse.psu.edu!schwartz From: schwartz@galapagos.cse.psu.edu (Scott Schwartz) Newsgroups: comp.sys.powerpc,comp.sys.intel,comp.os.misc,comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,comp.unix.sys5.r4,comp.unix.misc,comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.386bsd.development,comp.os.386bsd.misc Subject: Re: Interested in PowerPC for Linux / FreeBSD / NetBSD? Date: 27 Dec 1994 23:13:49 GMT Organization: Penn State Comp Sci & Eng Lines: 42 Message-ID: <SCHWARTZ.94Dec27181349@galapagos.cse.psu.edu> References: <3cilp3$143@news-2.csn.net> <3d4ucp$sbn@hearst.cac.psu.edu> <SCHWARTZ.94Dec27135416@galapagos.cse.psu.edu> <D1HpEL.MEx@park.uvsc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: galapagos.cse.psu.edu In-reply-to: Terry Lambert's message of Tue, 27 Dec 1994 22:06:19 GMT Terry Lambert <terry@cs.weber.edu> writes: I beg to differ. There *IS* "an excuse for that" and that excuse is called "existing practice". I think you are confusing the implementation that you have (the one evidencing existing practice) with a good implementation. Wait a minute... one second it's "existing practice" and the next it's just "the implementation that I have"? Well, yeah. Almost all implementations are bad. For heaven's sake, let's fix it already! I'm sorry, but you can't outlaw legacy systems -- it just won't work. At a minimum, though, the default should be to do the authentication, so that broken systems are strongly discouraged. There is no implication that the "default" will be insecure, only that an insecure version exists. That's false. Existing practice is to be insecure, just like you said before, and your argument about compatability finances the conclusion. One need look no farther than the default Solaris NFS implementations requirements regarding the use of secure ports to see that this is true -- if the "default" were to use the older compatability mechanism, then Solaris NFS servers would not require the priveledged port. Look, privileged ports have NOTHING to do with security: Any station on the network can generate messages from any port the crackers at the console want it to. Network authentication requires cryptographic techniques. This shouldn't be news to anyone. For years now, not just with Solaris, Sun has shipped a cryptographic "secure nfs" option. They get double extra-credit for trying, but practically no one ever runs it, not even inside Sun. That's what making it optional gets you. Another reason is that it uses proprietary technology. So much for open systems. Someday they'll use kerberos, I'm told. In the meantime....