sm-notify - drop privileges before receiving packets from network.

[nfs-utils.git] / utils / statd / sm-notify.8

diff --git a/utils/statd/sm-notify.8 b/utils/statd/sm-notify.8
index a1c10c36d28bc1fc2d961c064d89d56d13f05fd8..dd03b8dabbc15507316882136ab167694c96e312 100644 (file)
--- a/utils/statd/sm-notify.8
+++ b/utils/statd/sm-notify.8
@@ -50,6 +50,22 @@ in
 .BR /var/lib/nfs/state ,
 and updated by
 .BR sm-notify .
+.SS Security
+.B sm-notify
+has little need for root privileges and so drops them as soon as
+possible.
+It continues to need to make changes to the
+.B sm
+and
+.B sm.bak
+directories so to be able to drop privileges, these must be writable
+by a non-privileged user.  If these directories are owned by a
+non-root user,
+.B sm-notify
+will drop privilege to match that user once it has created sockets for
+sending out request (for which it needs privileged) but before it
+processes any reply (which is the most likely source of possible
+privilege abuse).
 .SH OPTIONS
 .TP
 .BI -m " failtime