[GLLUG] Sharing /tmp Among Distros

[C. Ulrich]

Melson, Paul wrote:
> <p alt="Arnold Dingfelder Horshack">
> Oooh!  Oooh!  Mistair Kottair, I know why!
> </p>
> 
> Because /tmp is often chmod 1777 or 777, there are security risks
> associated with having a script (especially an init script, which would
> typically run as root) delete content from /tmp.  For example, a
> malicious user could create a link from some place in /tmp to
> /etc/passwd which could then be unlinked by the init script at boot.
> There are ways of mitigating this specific problem (i.e. `find /tmp
> -type f |xargs rm`), but it's generally considered a bad practice to
> bulk remove content from any world-writable directory.
> 
> PaulM
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> (I have often wondered why most/all distros don't have a line in the
> init scripts that cleans out /tmp during either each startup or
> shutdown.) 
> 

I'll wonder no longer. :)

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