Blog Entries for "Linux"

Posted by Matt Savona on June 4, 2008

In a frenzy of updating on this server, I broke mod_python. This server has multiple versions of Python, two of which have somehow been orphaned (as in, RPMs erased, but binaries and libraries intact). Yum, the package manager, indicates an entirely different version of Python under its control. And somehow this managed version, and at least one of the orphaned versions share the same lib path. In any case, it's taken some time for me to recompile mod_python and move bin and lib directories around to get the pathing issues all worked out across the several installed versions of Python ... [read more...]

SUID and SGID Bits

Posted by Matt Savona on February 24, 2008

Matt's Network Monitor So, all my Linux-using friends, I need your opinion on something.

The network monitoring tool (click here) I'm writing is dependent on nmap for ping/port sweeps and OS fingerprinting. As such, it needs to run as root. Of course, the web app itself won't run as root.

Two thoughts popped into my head:

sudo
Set UID and Set GID bits

The problem with sudo is that in order to execute the command, I'd still have to authenticate the user. When using popen() in any language, I think it's best to avoid dealings with STDIN/STDOUT. I ... [read more...]