[NTLUG:Discuss] Ubuntu's use of sudo

[Greg Edwards]

Terry Henderson wrote:

> interested  me most was, "The sudo approach reduces the likelihood of
> a root shell being left open indefinitely, and encourages the user to
> minimize their use of root privileges."  The part that interested me
> most was the part about leaving a root shell open indefinitely.  Is
> that really a vulnerability issue?  If so, how so?  Can anyone explain
> that?

Basically the short simple answer,

A sudu shell really has a parent that is the shell that the user started 
it from.  The *nix OSs terminate the children of the parent shell when it 
terminates.  When the user logs off they're login shell gets terminated, 
and therefore, the parent of the sudu session terminates its children.

A root shell is, by default, a child of init, which is the parent for the 
entire running system.  Since root is never, technically, logged off, 
roots' children are not terminated.  They can get inherited by init itself.

Remember I said the short "simple" answer ;)  If you want the long winded 
detailed answer, be prepared to read lots of stuff.

IHTH
-- 
Greg Edwards