Subject: Re: Root Password

From: Pete Young <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 10:06:02 +0100 (BST)

> hehe... well, that will work to, I guess... :-)

Well, it did for me with an Indy running 5.3 .

As an aside, Irix as shipped has to be the most simple unix variant to
break that I've ever come across. Why on earth does all that stuff have
to run setuid root? Never thought I'd be advocating a switch to Linux
on security grounds, but there you go!

Regards

Pete

  ____________________________________________________________________
  Pete Young          [email-masked]        Phone +44 1473 642740
      "Just another crouton, floating on the bouillabaisse of life"

---

From: Alistair Lambie <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 22:15:02 +1200

> on security grounds, but there you go!

I think that may be a bit unfair.  Irix 5.3 is real old (Nov 17, 1994)
and while it had many security issues I think a lot of other vendors
probably did as well in that time frame.  There are a lot of security
patches available for Irix 5.3 and I'm guessing they are probably not
loaded on the machine you are using.  These patches are made available
to everyone regardless of whether you have a support contract or not. 
You can find information at
http://www.sgi.com/Support/security/security.html  If you find something
that is not fixed you can report it at that site as well.  

Cheers, Alistair

-- 
Alistair Lambie                                [email-masked]
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