[9065] in athena10
Re: [Mail review request] nonlocal functionality
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Geoffrey Thomas)
Tue May 22 21:47:20 2012
Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 21:47:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: Geoffrey Thomas <geofft@MIT.EDU>
To: "Edward Z. Yang" <ezyang@MIT.EDU>
cc: scripts-team@MIT.EDU, debathena@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <1337736184-sup-3646@ezyang>
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.00.1205222144020.8723@dr-wily.mit.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
On Tue, 22 May 2012, Edward Z. Yang wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> We're interested in using SSSD to replace our current use of
> NSS/PAM/NSCD/NSLCD. However, we were curious whether or not
> SSSD had implemented some critical security checks to protect
> against malicious remote domains.
I'm trying to determine whether or not it's worth defending why you care
-- the answer may well just be "just use LDAPS". Possibly it's just worth
having a response in case they point this out.
> - What are the semantics of the local domain: that is,
> do I have a guarantee that entries in local will never
> be affected by the network?
>
> - If the answer to the above is true, how does SSSD resolve
> conflicts between two domains which have entries that claim
> the same UID? I understand that the max_id/min_id functionality
> is intended to address this partially, but does SSSD do any
> further sanity checks, such as refusing information from
> remote domains that exist in local domains?
>
> - Additionally, users may come with groups, and it is bad if
> remote domains can spoof ownership in local groups. Is there
> anyway to lock this down?
>
> - It is frequently useful for applications running on the system
> to be able to identify nonlocal users as opposed to local users;
> we had a nsswitch module which identified nonlocal users and
> added them to their own group. Does this functionality exist
> in SSSD? (It's also convenient to have another group which contains
> local users.)
I'd probably use "remote", not "nonlocal".
> - A nice to have feature (though not strictly necessary), is the
> ability to globally add nonlocal users to some local group.
> Is this supported?
>
> The MIT Debathena and Scripts projects would be very interested
> in seeing this functionality exist, and if it doesn't, we'd be
> interested in contributing this functionality.
>
> Thanks,
> Edward
>
