Re: Preferences.app vs Configure.app; was Re: ANN: GNUtooth, Bluetooth 'support' for GNUstep

[Helge Hess]

Jeff Teunissen wrote:
> Finally, I will not implement support for entering the admin/root password
> to gain access to functionality. This would require that the application
> be setuid root, which opens up a huge number of potential security
> problems, given that a user may install his/her own modules, such as:
>
> if (geteuid () == 0) {
>         NSTask *task = [NSTask launchedTaskWithLaunchPath: @"/bin/rm" arguments:
> [NSArray arrayWithObjects: @"-rf", "/"]];
> }

No, it doesn't. MacOSX uses the Security.framework which AFAIK relies on 
'sudo' which in turn won't allow a user to run arbitary scripts (and 
especially not rm ;-).

Only sudo needs to be setuid root and that is well audited. Actually 
using sudo is much more secure in practice since only one person 
actually needs to know the root password.

Of course one needs to be careful, but nobody is talking about giving 
full root privileges to Preferences.app.

regards,
  Helge