Re: [Xen-users] XCP: Insecure Distro ?

[Jonathan Tripathy <jonnyt@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 09/05/2011 21:41, Adrien Guillon wrote:
> Hello mailing list!
>
> I have been working with XCP a little bit, and I have the impression
> that this distro is insecure.  First, it does not look like update
> repositories are enabled inside /etc/yum.repos.d, although I'm from an
> apt background so I may be misinterpreting that.  Where will my
> security updates come from?
>
> Next, it appears that the root password hash is directly stored inside
> /etc/passwd, which is set to world-readable!  There does not appear to
> be an /etc/shadow file at all.
>
> Unfortunately I am dropping the distro entirely due to security
> concerns, I hope that these problems can be fixed.
>
> AJ
>
>
>    
Hi AJ,

Since this is open software we are talking about, you are free to modify 
these settings. However, in my opinion, XCP is designed to be only 
accessed via the management software (The one used for the commercial 
Xen Server should work), so all your security generally comes from the 
fact that the VMs (DomUs) have no access to the XCP host OS (Dom0). I 
think the assumption is, that if you don't log in to XCP and execute 
binaries, then exploits won't occur.
Of course, I don't use XCP, and know little about it -  I'm just using 
whatever common sense I have on the matter (in that if you don't have 
multiple users on the system, then world readable permissions don't matter).
But I'd be interested to hear what someone else more qualified on the 
matter has to say
Cheers


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