Re: chmod of generated grub.cfg

[Robert Millan]

On Sun, Sep 06, 2009 at 07:22:36PM +0200, Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 3:38 PM, Colin Watson<address@hidden> wrote:
> > On Sun, Sep 06, 2009 at 02:29:03PM +0200, Felix Zielcke wrote:
> >> Currently grub-mkconfig uses chmod 444 on the newly generated grub.cfg
> >> Wouldn't it be better to use 400 now that we have plaintext password
> >> support?
> >> Or should we add support for a GRUB_CHMOD variable so users can override
> >> this setting as they please?
> >
> > I'd prefer to see this done only if they set a password. A GRUB_CHMOD
> > variable seems overkill, though.
> Is there a reason a non-root would like to look at grub.cfg on
> production system? Developers can always override chmod. If there is
> no real reason for non-root to look into grub.cfg I would follow the
> best friend in security considerations called "paranoia" and just use
> mode 400

I like the idea of using 0400 right away, for simplicity.

OTOH, world-readable grub.cfg is useful, at least in Debian, because
reportbug includes this file in bug reports.

But if it's only useful for Debian, we shouldn't let this change our
agenda (ah, the conflict of wearing two hats...).

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."