 3.1) How much disk space do I need to install Solaris 2?

 3.2) How can I convert all my local changes that I've made over the years into their
corresponding forms on Solaris 2?
 3.3) What are "packages"?
 3.4) Why can't I write in/mount over /home?
 3.5) Why can't I access CDs or floppies?
 3.6) Why are there no passwords in /etc/passwd?
 3.7) Why can't I rlogin/telnet in as root?
 3.8) Why can't I ssh in as root?
 3.9) How can I have a user without a password?
 3.10) How can I have a "su-only" user?
 3.11) How can I set up anonymous FTP?
 3.12) How can I print from a Solaris 2 (or any System V Release 4) system to a
SunOS4.x (or any other BSD) system?
 3.13) How can I print to a non-Postscript/non-ascii printer?
 3.14) How can I print to a networked printer?
 3.15) Why does lp complain about invalid content types?
 3.16) My jobs stay in the queue after printing.
 3.17) Are there any alternatives to the system V spooler?
 3.18) What happened to /dev/MAKEDEV? How do I add devices?
 3.19) Why isn't my tape/cd player or new disk/device recognized?
 3.20) What happened to /etc/rc and /etc/rc.local?
 3.21) What happened to /etc/rc?.d/*?
 3.22) Can't I have /etc/rc.local back?
 3.23) Why are there two versions of shutdown?
 3.24) When will somebody publish a package of the BSD (4.3BSD Net2) "init",
"getty", and "rc/rc.local", so we can go back to life in the good old days?
 3.25) What has happened to getty? What is pmadm and how do you use it?
 3.26) How do I get the screen to blank when nobody's using it?
 3.27) And what about screendump, screenload and clear_colormap?
 3.28) Where did etherfind go?
 3.29) Can I run SunOS 4.1.x on my SPARC Classic, LX, SS5, SS4, SS20, Voyager,
SS1000, SC2000, CS6400, Ultra?
 3.30) The "find" program complains that my root directory doesn't exist?
 3.31) I'm having troubles with high-speed input on the Sparc serial ports. What
should I do?
 3.32) How do I make ksh or csh be the login shell for root?
 3.33) What is this message: "automount: No network locking on host, contact
administrator to install server change."?
 3.34) I have all kinds of problems with SCSI disks/RAIDs under Solaris 2.x They
worked fine under SunOS 4.x.
 3.35) How do I make Solaris2 use my old ADAPTEC ACB-4000 and Emulex MD-21
disk controllers?
 3.36) Should I wait installing the latest Solaris release until there are enough patches?
 3.37) Why are there so many patches for Solaris 2.x?
 3.38) What are the ``mandatory'' patches I keep hearing about?
 3.39) Which patches should I apply?
 3.40) Where do I get patches from?
 3.41) Where can I obtain Solaris 2/x86 driver updates?
 3.42) Why does installing patches take so much space in /var/sadm?
 3.43) Do I need to back out previous versions of a patch?
 3.44) How can I have more than 48 pseudo-ttys?
 3.45) How can I have normal users chown their files?
 3.46) How can I get ps to print %MEM and %CPU?
 3.47) How can I get the DOS and Unix clock to agree on Solaris/x86?
 3.48) How can I increase the number of file descriptors per process?
 3.49) Can I install both SunOS and Solaris on the same machine, and choose between
them at boot time?
 3.50) How do I disable banner pages under Solaris?
 3.51) How do I change my hostname?
 3.52) Can I run multiple terminals on the console of Solaris x86 like those supported
on Interactive Unix and SCO?
 3.53) How can I prevent daemons from creating mode 666 files?
 3.54) How do I change the terminal type for /dev/console?
 3.55) If I login over the network, my terminal type is set to "sun"/"AT386" How can I
change that? In SunOS 4.x the type would have been "network"
 3.56) How can I change the SYSV IPC parameters?
 3.57) How do I enable/disable dtlogin?
 3.58) How do I configure dtlogin?
 3.59) How can I configure a second monitor or change X server options?
 3.60) How do I configure my x86 X server?
 3.61) How can I have more than 128 X windows clients?
 3.62) Xvnc/Xnest/Xvfb can't create a socket in /tmp/.X11-unix.
 3.63) How can I restrict remote access through dtlogin?
 3.64) How do I disable the 2.6+ configuration assistant?
 3.65) How do I convert SunOS 4.x style /etc/passwd to Solaris passwd & shadow.
 3.66) How can I obtain the PROM level without halting my SPARC?
 3.67) How can I use Solaris 2.6+ formatted disks on SunOS 4.x?
 3.68) Can I use soft mounts with NFS?
 3.69) How can I boot a 32 bit kernel when a 64 bit kernel is installed?
 3.70) How can I tell whether I'm running a 32 or 64 bit kernel?
 3.71) How do I get rid of the Solregis pop-up?
 3.72) Where do I get Disksuite for Solaris 8?
 3.73) Where do I get Disksuite for Solaris 9 and later?
 3.74) How do perform an old-fashioned interactive install in Solaris 8?
 3.75) Now that Solaris install from several CDs, how can I jumpstart?
 3.76) How can I grow a UFS filesystem?
 3.77) How do I install without starting OpenWindows?
 3.78) How do I set up Solaris for my time zone and daylight saving rules?
 3.79) I always install my own perl, can I remove the Sun installed one?
 3.80) Where did kgmon go?
 3.81) Why do swap -l, swap -s and /tmp disagree about the amount of swap?
 3.82) How do I secure my Solaris system?

4. NETWORKING
 4.1) How do I use DNS w/o using NIS or NIS+?
 4.2) What is /etc/nsswitch.conf?
 4.3) What does [NOTFOUND=return] in nsswitch.conf mean?
 4.4) Can I run a nis/yp server under Solaris 2.x?
 4.5) Can I run NIS+ under Solaris 1 (SunOS 4.1.x)
 4.6) With NIS+ how do I find out which machine a client is bound to?
 4.7) Ypcat doesn't work on the netgroup table on a NIS+ server, why?
 4.8) Why is rpc.nisd such a memory pig according to ps?
 4.9) How do I tell my NIS+ server to service DNS requests from 4.x clients?
 4.10) How can I have multiple addresses per interface?
 4.11) Solaris 2+ supports filesystem sizes up to 16TB. Will this give interoperability
problems with NFS?
 4.12) Where can I get an SNMP agent for Solaris?
 4.13) How can I use full-duplex ethernet?
 4.14) Where can I get BOOTP/DHCP for Solaris?
 4.15) What kind of multicast support does Solaris have?
 4.16) How can I have NAT or a firewall on Solaris?
 4.17) Where can I get an IPv6 capable version of tcp wrapper?

5. TROUBLE SHOOTING
 5.1) The Solaris 2.x application XX fails with a mysterious error condition.
 5.2) In Solaris 2.5 nm is slow or dumps core.
 5.3) Why can't I run Answerbook on a standalone machine?
 5.4) Why can't I display Answerbook remotely?
 5.5) Why can't I run filemgr, I get ``mknod: permission denied''?
 5.6) Why do I get isinf undefined when linking with libdps on Solaris 2.3?
 5.7) I can't get PPP to work between Solaris 2.3 and other platforms.
 5.8) Using compat mode for passwd doesn't work in 2.3?
 5.9) Why do I get __builtin_va_alist or __builtin_va_arg_incr undefined?
 5.10) When compiling, I get "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"?
 5.11) My machine hangs during the boot process. It seems related to ps.
 5.12) Syslogd doesn't seem to log anything.
 5.13) Syslogd in 2.6 runs with -z <num> -n, what's up?
 5.14) I get ``Invalid client credential'' when mounting filesystem on Solaris client
from non-Sun fileserver.
 5.15) After upgrade to 2.4, ls on NFS mounted directories hangs.
 5.16) After installing patch 101945-xx, I have NFS problems (ksh looping).
 5.17) I messed up /etc/system, now I can't boot.
 5.18) The /etc/path_to_inst file is corrupted, I can't boot.
 5.19) TCP/IP connections time out too soon, especially on slow links.
 5.20) Sendmail connection to non-Unix hosts don't work.
 5.21) Solaris 2.x can't set up any TCP/IP connections to certain hosts.
 5.22) I read 5.21, but I still have connectivity problems.
 5.23) When reading mail on non-Solaris clients of a Solaris mail server, or with non-
Solaris mail readers, some messages get split into multiple messages.
 5.24) Mail/mailx often send reply to wrong user or show wrong sender.
 5.25) One of my users can't login (one some machines).
 5.26) My clients with remote /var (/var/adm) partitions won't boot.
 5.27) Vacation doesn't work reliably in a mixed Solaris/SunOS environment.
 5.28) I have a lot of <defunct> processes. How do I get rid of them?
 5.29) I get /dev/ptmx: No such device when attempting to telnet/rlogin in.
 5.30) I get Could not grant slave pty on telnet/rlogin
 5.31) ld bails out with msync errors.
 5.32) su responds with "Sorry" and doesn't prompt for a password.
 5.33) Why can't I install 2.4 from a non-Sun CD while I could do so with 2.3?
 5.34) ifconfig can't find my network interface
 5.35) I have an application that compiled fine, but when I run it I get: fatal:
libfoo.so.2: can't open file: errno=2 or No such file or directory
 5.36) Motif programs dump core almost immediately.
 5.37) cc complains that "language optional software package not installed".
 5.38) thr_create/pthread_create and other thread functions always return -1
 5.39) Solaris 2.4 is getting slower over time/seems to have a kernel memory leak.
 5.40) Why do I get ``Unable to install/attach driver 'xxx''' messages?
 5.41) I can't run nfs: netdir_getbyname failure, /dev/udp: bind problem
 5.42) Why do I get ``named[]: rt_malloc: memdebug overflow'' errors?
 5.43) The ld command dumps core on Solaris/x86
 5.44) In Solaris 2.4 my TCP performance is extremely poor.
 5.45) Solaris 2.4 in.tftpd is terribly slow.
 5.46) I get "df: Could not find mount point ..."
 5.47) I changed root's shell, forgotten root's password, and I can't login.
 5.48) How do I boot single user from CD?
 5.49) How do I interrupt the system boot sequence on SPARC?
 5.50) How do I reset the NVRAM to factory defaults?
 5.51) When linking C++ programs, I get "_ex_keylock" undefined.
 5.52) My NFS server hangs when I get filesystem full/over quota errors.
 5.53) OpenWindows fails with "Binding Unix Socket: Invalid argument"
 5.54) Why is Xsun such a memory pig, especially on the SX, S24 and FFB?
 5.55) Solaris 2.5 and Solaris 2.4 patch 101945-34+ have poor TCP performance over
slow links.
 5.56) After install x86 patch 101946-29, I have problems with sockets and TCP/IP
throughput.
 5.57) The commands du and ls show funny block counts on NFSv3 filesystems.
 5.58) When I halt/reboot my system I get "INIT: failed write of utmpx entry"
 5.59) Patch installation often fails with "checkinstall" errors.
 5.60) Why do I get a CPU-bound rpc.ttdbserverd process?
 5.61) What is /proc? Can I safely remove the large files there?
 5.62) What does "named[XX]: Lame server on 'hostname' ...." mean?
 5.63) I installed Solaris on a new/big disk, but now booting fails.
 5.64) I have a problem with large disk drives.
 5.65) When I try a network install I get: "WARNING: using boot version 8, expected
9"
 5.66) My Ultra shuts down with "WARNING: THERMAL WARNING
DETECTED!!!"
 5.67) Power management shuts down my monitor, but it never comes back.
 5.68) I can't seem to disable power management in 2.6!
 5.69) Power management no longer kicks in when xlock runs
 5.70) Orainst 7.3.2 dumps core in 2.5.1 with patches and in 2.6.
 5.71) My dial-on-demand link keeps dialing out, seems DNS related.
 5.72) Processes hang in door_call(), hostname lookups hang.
 5.73) When using Solaris 2.6, many fonts don't show up properly in Netscape 4.
 5.74) When using virtual interfaces in 2.6, the system picks a random source address.
How can I fix this?
 5.75) A downloaded binary complains "libresolv.so.2: can't open file"
 5.76) Ypserv/NIS w/ DNS is very unreliable in Solaris 2.6.
 5.77) When trying to install Solaris 2.x on an Ultra-5/Ultra-10/Ultra-60, it can't find
"kernel/unix".
 5.78) After the system has been up for a while, freemem is only a couple of MB.
 5.79) A device driver that worked fine under S2.6 stopped loading under S7
 5.80) I get a lot of "late collisions", what are those?
 5.81) I can't mount an NFS filesystem, I get "RPC: Program not registered".
 5.82) How do I automatically NFS share inserted CD-Roms?
 5.83) I cannot run remote tooltalk sessions on Solaris 8 displays and recently patched
older systems.
 5.84) Where is all my memory in use?
 5.85) Tcpd prints "connect (refused) from 0.0.0.0" in Solaris 8 and later?
 5.86) The permissions on /tmp are wrong after a reboot?

 5.87) After upgrading to Solaris 9 vold no longer mounts CDs.

.1) How secure is Solaris 2?

Solaris 2 is relatively secure, considering that it is a general-purpose, time-sharing,

multi-user operating system. Such systems are inherently full of compromises.
Solaris 2 is a version of Unix which was not designed for security. However, Sun
actively fixes security holes. Additionally, there are facilities that can increase the
security of Solaris (see section 3).

Specifically, Solaris has been designed to meet the TCSEC (Orange Book C2) level
for security. According to Sun, Solaris 2.4SE is ITSEC E2/F-C2-certified. Solaris 2.6 is
currently undergoing both the ITSEC E3/F-C2 and TCSEC C2 certification processes.
Current information can be found at http://www.sun.com/solaris/2.6/ds-
security.html.
In order to build a system that actually meets the evaluation there are a number of
patches that must be installed. A bundle of the exact patches used for the evaluation
can be obtained directly from Sun.

For those that need more security than provided by C2 Sun provides a version of
Solaris that meets was designed to meet the TCSEC CMW (Compartmented Mode
Workstation) level, which exceeds B1.

Trusted Solaris 1.2 F-B1/E3 (Based on SunOS 4.1.3_U1)

Trusted Solaris 2.5.1 F-B1/E3 (Based on Solaris 2.5.1 11/97)

1.2) What version of Solaris should I run?

Where security is concerned? Each subsequent release of Solaris has been an

improvement over its predecessor. Solaris 2.7 is currently the latest release, and
also the most secure.

1.3) Can I just install a machine and ignore it?

Most installed machines suffer from entropy: They lack a current OS release, and up-
to-date patches and tools. It's important to install the latest patches, at the least, to
be sure that all known security holes are filled.

1.4) What is the single most important step I can take to secure a Solaris machine?

Keep the security patches up-to-date. According to CERT, many systems are
compromised by exploiting known bugs for which patches exist. Simply keeping
patches up-to-date, especially on "exposed" machines, will greatly decrease the
chance of a break-in.

2) How can I configure Solaris to make it more secure?

2.2) How should I change root user configuration?

Be sure root has a umask setting of 077 or 027.

Be sure root has a safe search path, as in /usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin

2.3) How should I change startup files?

Generally, examine all "S" files in /etc/rc2.d and /etc/rc3.d. Any files that start
unneeded facilities should be renamed (be sure the new names don't start with "S").
Test all boot files changes by rebooting, examining /var/adm/messages, and
checking for extraneous processes in ps -elf output.

2.4) How can I disable network root logins?

Make sure the to enable the "CONSOLE" line in /etc/default/login. To disable use of
ftp by root, add "root" to /etc/ftpusers.
2.5) How do I disable rlogin/rsh access?

Remove /etc/hosts.equiv, /.rhosts, and all of the "r" commands from /etc/inetd.conf
Do a kill -HUP of the inetd process.

2.6) What accounts are unnecessary?

Remove, lock, or comment out unnecessary accounts, including "sys", "uucp",

"nuucp", and "listen". The cleanest way to shut them down is to put "*LK*" in the
password field of the /etc/shadow file. Also consider using the noshell program to
log attempts to use secured accounts.

2.7) How to I protect devices?

The file /etc/logindevperm contains configuration information to tell the system the
permissions to set on devices associated with login (console, keyboard, etc). Check
the values in this file and modify them to give different permissions.

For removable media the BSM subsystem provides the allocate and deallocate
commands that ensure that only a single user can access removable media (such as
tapes) at any one time.

2.8) What permissions should I change in /etc?

No file in /etc needs to be group writeable. Remove group write permission via the
command chmod -R g-w /etc

2.9) Why do Solaris machines act as routers?

By default, if a Solaris machine has more than one network interface, Solaris will
route packets between the multiple interfaces. This behavior is controlled by
/etc/init.d/inetinit. To turn of routing on a Solaris 2.4 (or lesser) machine, add ndd
-set /dev/ip ip_forwarding 0 at the end of /etc/init.d/inetinit. For Solaris 2.5,
simply touch /etc/notrouter. Be aware that there is a small window of
vulnerability during startup when the machine may route, before the routing is
turned off.

2.10) How do I disable automounter?

Automounter is controlled by the /etc/auto_* configuration files. To disable

automounter, remove those files, and/or disable the /etc/rc2.d/S74autofs.

2.11) How to I disable NFS service?

NFS exports are controlled by the /etc/dfs/dfstab file. Remove this file. To disable the
NFS server daemon, rename /etc/rc3.d/S15nfs.server. To prevent a machine from
being an NFS client, rename /etc/rc2.d/S73nfs.client. When renaming startup files,
be sure to name them with a starting letter other than "S".

2.12) Do I need to worry about cron jobs?

Review all the cron jobs by reading the cron file of every system account in
/var/spool/cron/crontabs. Consider logging all cron activities by setting
"CRONLOG=yes" in /etc/default/cron.

2.13) Are there any risks to using dynamic routes?

Machines using a dynamic route-receiving daemon like in.routed and in.rdisc are
vulnerable to receiving incorrect routes. These routes can disable some or all
connectivity to other networks. When possible, use static routes (routes added via
the route commands in startup files, rather than the routing daemons.

2.14) When and how should I use static ARP?

ARP is the protocol used to associate IP and Ethernet addresses. Machines that share
a wire (and have no routers between them) know each others ARP addresses. If one
machine is replaced with another, the ARP addresses are usually different. By
default, Solaris machines dynamically determine ARP addresses. The arp command
can be used to statically set ARP table entries and flush all other entries. This facility
is best used when there are few, unchanging systems on a network and the
machines need to be assured of each other's identities.

2.15) Is it unsecure to run rpcbind?

rpcbind is the program that allows rpc callers and rpc service provides to find each
other. Unfortunately, standard rpc is unsecure. It uses "AUTH_UNIX" authentication,
which means it depends on the remote system's IP address and the remote user's
UID for identification. Both of these forms of identification can be easily forged or
changed. General-purpose systems usually need rpc running to keep users happy.
Special purpose systems (web servers, ftp servers, mail servers, etc) can usually
have rpc disabled. Be sure to test all the facilities that you depend on to be sure they
aren't affected if you turn off rpc. To disable rpc, rename /etc/rc2.d/S71RPC.

2.16) What permission bits should be set on /etc/utmp?

/etc/utmp can be set to mode 644 without disrupting any service.

2.17) What programs can be un-suid'ed?

Many of the setuid and setgid programs on Solaris are used only by root, or by the
user or group-id to which they are set. They can have setuid and setgid removed
without diminishing user's abilities to get their work done. Consider each of these
programs individually as to their use on your system. This is an example list of setuid
programs taken from a Solaris 2.6 system:

# find / -perm -4000 -print

/usr/lib/lp/bin/netpr
/usr/lib/fs/ufs/quota
/usr/lib/fs/ufs/ufsdump
/usr/lib/fs/ufs/ufsrestore
/usr/lib/fs/vxfs/vxdump
/usr/lib/fs/vxfs/vxquota
/usr/lib/fs/vxfs/vxrestore
/usr/lib/exrecover
/usr/lib/pt_chmod
/usr/lib/sendmail
/usr/lib/utmp_update
/usr/lib/acct/accton
/usr/lib/uucp/remote.unknown
/usr/lib/uucp/uucico
/usr/lib/uucp/uusched
/usr/lib/uucp/uuxqt
/usr/lib/sendmail.orig
/usr/openwin/lib/mkcookie
/usr/openwin/bin/xlock
/usr/openwin/bin/ff.core
/usr/openwin/bin/kcms_configure
/usr/openwin/bin/kcms_calibrate
/usr/openwin/bin/sys-suspend
/usr/dt/bin/dtaction
/usr/dt/bin/dtappgather
/usr/dt/bin/sdtcm_convert
/usr/dt/bin/dtprintinfo
/usr/dt/bin/dtsession
/usr/bin/at
/usr/bin/atq
/usr/bin/atrm
/usr/bin/crontab
/usr/bin/eject
/usr/bin/fdformat
/usr/bin/login
/usr/bin/newgrp
/usr/bin/passwd
/usr/bin/ps
/usr/bin/rcp
/usr/bin/rdist
/usr/bin/rlogin
/usr/bin/rsh
/usr/bin/su
/usr/bin/tip
/usr/bin/uptime
/usr/bin/w
/usr/bin/yppasswd
/usr/bin/admintool
/usr/bin/ct
/usr/bin/cu
/usr/bin/uucp
/usr/bin/uuglist
/usr/bin/uuname
/usr/bin/uustat
/usr/bin/uux
/usr/bin/chkey
/usr/bin/nispasswd
/usr/bin/cancel
/usr/bin/lp
/usr/bin/lpset
in/lpstat
/usr/bin/volcheck
/usr/bin/volrmmount
/usr/bin/pppconn
/usr/bin/pppdisc
/usr/bin/ppptool
/usr/sbin/allocate
/usr/sbin/mkdevalloc
/usr/sbin/mkdevmaps
/usr/sbin/ping
/usr/sbin/sacadm
/usr/sbin/whodo
/usr/sbin/deallocate
/usr/sbin/list_devices
/usr/sbin/m64config
/usr/sbin/lpmove
/usr/sbin/pmconfig
/usr/sbin/static/rcp
/usr/sbin/vxprint
/usr/sbin/vxmkcdev
/usr/ucb/ps
/usr/vmsys/bin/chkperm
/etc/lp/alerts/printer

Create a master list of the remaining setuid/setgid programs on your system and
check that the list remains static over time.

2.18) What system facilities can I disable?

Every network on the system should be inspected to determine if the facility that it
provides is appropriate for your environment. If not, disable the facility. Some of
these facilities are in the system startup files, as discussed in section 2. Other are
started in /etc/inetd.conf. Comment out the unneeded facilities and kill -HUP the
inetd daemon. Some common facilities are:

tftp systat rexd ypupdated netstat

rstatd rusersd sprayd walld exec
comsat rquotad name uucp

For a very secure system, replace the standard inetd.conf with one that just
includes telnet and ftp (if you need those facilities).

2.19) Should I run in.fingerd?

in.fingerd has had some security problems in the past. If you want to provide the
finger facility, run it as "nobody", not as "root".

2.20) Can syslog be made to be more effective?

By default, syslog provides minimal system logging. Modify the /etc/syslog.conf file
to have syslog log more information, and separate to where the information is
logged by importance. Anything related to security should be sent to a file that gets
encrypted. Unfortunately, syslog must be restarted for it to read the new
configuration file.

More login logging can be enabled by creating the "loginlog" file:

touch /var/adm/loginlog
chmod 600 /var/adm/loginlog
chgrp sys /var/adm/loginlog

2.21) How can the EEPROM make a system more secure?

Set the EEPROM to "security=command" password-protect all EEPROM commands

except "boot" and continue". Set the EEPROM's password so no one else can change
its modes. Unfortunately, this doesn't truly secure the machine. If someone has
physical access to the machine, they can open the machine and replace its EEPROM.
Replacing the machine's EEPROM also changes its hostid. Recording all the hostids
of your machines and checking this list against the machines occasionally to verify
that no EEPROMs have been replaced.

2.22) Is my machine being "promiscuous"?

Under Solaris, there is no way to determine if a machine's network interfaces are in

"promiscuous" mode. Promiscuous mode allows the machine to see all network
packets, rather than just those packets destined for the machine. This allows the
machine to snoop the network and monitor all traffic. An interface should only be in
promiscuous mode if the snoop program, or another network monitor program, is
being run. If you aren't running such a program, and your machine's interface is in
promiscuous mode, then it's likely that a hacker is monitoring your network. The
public domain ifstatus command returns a machine's promiscuous state. It is
currently only ported to Solaris 2.6 and below. (See section 3.)

2.23) If I need to use NFS, how can I make it more secure ?

• Any filesystems listed in /etc/dfs/dfstab will be exported to the world, by

default. Include a list of nfs clients (or a netgroup) with the "-o rw" or "-o ro"
options.
• Include the "nosuid" option to disable setuid programs on that mount where
applicable
• Don't run nfs mount through rpcbind - the mount daemon will see the
request as being local and allow it. This is the source of known rpcbind
vulnerabilities as reported by CERT (section 4). Use the rpcbind replacement
(section 3) that disables request forwarding, or be sure have installed the
latest Sun rpcbind patches which also disable forwarding.
• Use secure-RPC if possible. If not, you're using "AUTH_UNIX" authentication,
which simply depends on the IP address of the client for identification. Any
machine using the IP address of the ones in your access list can gain access
to NFS.
• Disable NFS if possible. NFS traffic flows in clear-text (even when using
"AUTH_DES" or "AUTH_KERB" for authentication) so any files transported via
NFS are susceptible to snooping.
• Programs can guess the file handle of the root mount point and get any file
from an NFS server, regardless of any access rights. Use fsirand to
randomize inode numbers on NFS servers.

2.24) How can I secure sendmail

With each new Solaris release, Sun ships sendmail code updated with the latest
fixes. Still, there are new bugs reported monthly. How can sendmail be made more
secure?

• Consider running the latest version Berkeley sendmail (see section 3)

• Consider using smrsh or other sendmail replacements (section 3)
• Remove "decode" from /etc/aliases
• Set /etc/aliases permissions to 644
• Consider using a proxy-based firewall with SMTP filtering to screen out
unnecessary SMTP commands.
• If the machine needs to receive email (and thus needs an SMTP daemon
running, consider a separate partition for /var/mailto prevent spam attacks
from filling /var and disabling logging et al.

2.25) Is NIS secure, and how can it be made more secure?

NIS is not a secure distributed name service. NIS+ is more secure when configured
properly. NIS will give away all the information in its tables if its domain name is
guessable. To close this hole, put trusted host/net addresses to /var/yp/securenets.
Also consider using secure RPC or NIS+. Finally, don't include root and other system
account information in NIS tables.

2.26) What is needed for secure anonymous ftp service?

Solaris 2.5 ftpd(1M) contains a good set of configuration directions, with the
following exceptions:

• cp /etc/nsswitch.conf ~ftp/etc
• Make sure that the filesystem containing ~ftp is not mounted with the
"nosuid" option
• No files under ~ftp should be owned by "ftp"
• More detailed instructions can be found the anonymous ftp directions (section
4).

2.27) How can X be made more secure?

• Use the SUN-DES-1 option to use Secure RPC to pass X

authentication/authorization information.
• Use xhost +user@host when granting access

2.28) How do I turn on SUN-DES-1 authentication?

• set DisplayManager*authorize: true

• set DisplayManager._0.authName: SUN-DES-1
• rm ~/.Xauthority
• add access permission for local host via xauth local/unix:0 SUN-DES-1
unix.local@nisdomain and xauth local:0 SUN-DES-1
unix.local@nisdomain
• Start X via xinit -- -auth ~/.Xauthority
 • Add yourself and remove all others via xhost +user@
+unix.local@nisdomain -local -localhost

Now, to give user "foo" permission to access host "node":

• Give "foo" permission on "node" via xhost +foo@

• Create appropriate xauthority for "foo" via xauth add node:0 SUN-DES-1
unix.node@nisdomain
• "foo" can now connect to "node": xload -display node:0

2.29) What patches should I install?

Use showrev -p to list patches installed on the system. Check Sun's patch list
(section 4) for current security-related patches for the version you are running.
Download and install all pertinent security patches. Recheck the patch list frequently.
Not all security patches need be installed on every machine. But protect machines,
or those with public access, should be kept up-to-date. The patchdiag program that
is available on the SunSolve CD and at the SunSolve web site will automatically
compare the patch level of a host against the current Sun recommended patch set,
and display any differences.

2.30) How can I prevent code from executing in the stack?

There are a whole category of security holes that depend on one system flaw: the
ability to execute code from the stack. These bugs overflow a buffer such that it
writes into stack space. In that space they put code that they can then execute. In
this way, the bug can execute arbitrary code on the target system.

To secure your system against stack based buffer overflows, you can add the
following to /etc/system:

set noexec_user_stack=1
set noexec_user_stack_log =1

The first line will prevent execution on a stack. Care must be taken though, because
there are some programs which legitimately try to run code off the stack. Those
programs will crash if you implement this option. Generally, if the system is single
purpose and needs to be secure (i.e. a web server), you should use this option. The
second line adds logging when someone does try to run an exploit.

2.31) How can I change the greeting banners?

The banner displayed during a terminal or console login comes from /etc/motd. The
default telnet banner can be changed by creating /etc/default/telnetd and adding
the "BANNER" variable, as in: BANNER="\n\nThis is a secured system.
Unauthorized access prohibited. All activity is logged.\n\n" The default
ftp banner can be changed via a similar line in /etc/default/ftpd.

2.32) How can I prevent TCP sequence prediction attacks?

In /etc/default/inetinit, modify the variable setting "TCP_STRONG_ISS=2".

3) What programs should I replace or add?

3.1) inetd?

inetd can be replaced with ftp://qiclab.scn.rain.com/pub/security/xinetd* to

add logging facilities. (This program apparently has not been ported to Solaris.)

3.2) ifstatus?

ifstatuscan determine if your network interfaces are in promiscuous mode. This

program needs to grok the kernel, and has only been updated through Solaris 2.6.
Until the author gets access to Solaris 7 and 8 source, or until Sun provides an
interface into the kernel for this information, it will not work on those releases.

3.3) xntp?

xntp is a more secure version of ntp, the network time protocol.

As from Solaris 2.6, Sun ships xntpd with the operating system.

3.4) sendmail?

The most recent (and usually most secure) version of sendmail is always available
from Berkeley. Included in the sendmail package is smrsh, the "sendmail restricted
shell" which can be used to control any programs invoked by sendmail.

Warning: there are Sun specific modifcations that will be lost if you move to a plain
Berkley sendmail. Also, Sun sendmail patches have a tendency to replace Berkeley
sendmail with Sun's sendmail. After installing patches, check that the sendmail
version that you want to run is still in place.

Sun is now shipping sendmail 8.9.1b with Solaris 7.

There are numerous replacements for sendmail, most designed with security
involved. One of the best is .

3.5) rpcbind?

A more secure rpcbind can be used to replace the standard rpcbind on Solaris
machines. This version includes tcpwrapper-like functionality and disables
forwarding of NFS requests through rpcbind. Sun's latest patches to rpcbind also
solve this problem.

3.6) Password checking programs?

Unfortunately, passwd+ and npasswd are not yet released on Solaris. They are
replacements for passwd that disallow "stupid" passwords from being used on Unix
systems.

A program similar to npasswd but for NIS only is available:

ftp://autoinst.acs.uci.edu/pub/uci-yppasswd According to the author (Dan
Stromberg), the code for checking for bad passwords is small, and would be easy to
copy into other programs.

From Solaris 2.6 onwards it is possible to augment or replace the authentication

mechanism used by Solaris using the PAM facility. For more information see
http://www.sun.com/solaris/pam/.

It is easy to implement a PAM module to ensure that users do not use dictionary
words, or to implement your other local rules.

Using PAM there is no need to replace any components of the OS including

passwd,login etc.

3.7) crack?

The crack program can be used to break "guessable" passwords in your /etc/shadow
file. It uses a lot of compute cycles, but will generally tell you the passwords of 10%
of your accounts the first time it is run.

3.8) ftp?

wu-ftp is a replacement for the standard ftpd daemon. It provides extensive

logging and access control.

Another alternative is the ftp daemon from openBSD. "The OpenBSD project
produces a FREE, multi-platform 4.4BSD-based UNIX-like operating system. Our
efforts emphasize portability, standardization, correctness, proactive security and
integrated cryptography." It's worth checking out the code and tools that they have
produced.

3.9) fix_modes?

fix-modes is a shell script that makes extensive changes to the file and directory
permissions on standard Solaris machines.

3.10) noshell?

noshell is a program that can be used as the shell on accounts that are never
supposed to be logged into. It logs the event (and prevents the login). (This program
apparently has not been ported to Solaris.)

3.11) bind?
The standard bind on Solaris has known security problems (See CERT in section 4).
This problems are patched over time, but the Solaris bind is generally behind the
curve on patches. The current standard bind release is always available at ISC.

3.12) netcat?

NetCat is a tool that is useful for security managers and crackers alike. It is a flexible
network connection creator, allowing for probes of arbitrary ports between arbitrary
systems.

4) What other useful resources should I know about?

4.1) Sun mailing-list?

Sun provides a security bulletin service via an email list to subscribe send email to
"security-alert@sun.com" with a subject of "subscribe CWS your-mail-address". Old
bulletins are available at ftp://ftp.uu.net/systems/sun/sun-dist. Phone: (415) 688-
9081

4.2) Sun patches?

Sun security patches are available at: http://sunsolve1.sun.com (for people with Sun
contracts).

4.3) Other Solaris FAQs?

The excellent Solaris FAQ: http://www.wins.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2/

4.4) Useful newsgroups?

All of the USENET newsgroups with "sun" in their name :-)

comp.security.announce

4.5) Useful mailing-lists?

Sun maintains a "patch club" mailing list that includes details of Sun patch releases.
Summaries are mailed weekly. The list also receives "EarlyNotifier Alerts" that
contain important patch information. To change, add, or delete your email address to
the list send mail to: SunSolve-EarlyNotifier@Sun.COM

If you want to be on one security mailing list, consider the best-of-security mailing
list. Send subscription requests to best-of-security-request@suburbia.net, or for a
digest form to best-of-security-d-request@suburbia.net.

Many security problems are due to bugs in the operating system or applications. To
keep up-to-date on bug happenings, subscribe to the Bugtraq mailing list. Bugtraq is
a full-disclosure UNIX security mailing list, started by Scott Chasin . To subscribe to
bugtraq, send mail to listserv@netspace.org containing the message body "subscribe
bugtraq". An archive of the mailing list is available at http://www.geek-
girl.com/bugtraq/index.html.

The Florida SunFlash is a "closed" mailing list for Sun owners. It contains mostly
press releases from Sun and third-party vendors. To find out about a mail point in
your area, or for other information send mail to infosunflash@Sun.COM Subscription
requests should be sent to sunflash-request@Sun.COM Archives are on
solar.nova.edu, ftp.uu.net, sunsite.unc.edu, src.doc.ic.ac.uk and ftp.adelaide.edu.au

The Sun Managers list is an unmoderated mailing list for emergency-only requests.
Subscribe and listen for a while, and read the regularly-posted Policy statement
BEFORE sending mail to it. Write to sun-managers@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu

The "Sneakers" mailing list is for discussion of LEGAL evaluations and experiments in
testing various Internet "firewalls" and other TCP/IP network security products.

The firewall mailing list is obviously for discussion of firewall-related issues.

4.6) Useful columns?

Back issues of Peter Baer Galvin's Unix Insider Solaris Security column (plug :-),
known as "Pete's Wicked World."

4.7) Useful web sites?

Perhaps the best single source of information, programs, and pointers to other
security sites is found at COAST.

Memco sells software to increase the security of individual and groups of machines.

The University of Houston has its Information Security Manual online. It makes for
interesting reading, especially if you're writing a policy manual for your site.

The best starting place for writing your own security policy is probably the newly-
updated security policy RFC.

If you're interested in web site security, you must read the WWW Security FAQ. Also
of interest is the Security Issues in WWW
(www.cs.unc.edu/wwwc/public/hanes/security.html) page.

Bellcore sells several security programs.

Trusted Systems does security consulting and training.

V-One sells products that provide two-way authenticated, encrypted communication.

The NIH provides a very useful Computer Security Information site, with an
especially useful list of security programs.
CIAC is the U.S. Department of Energy's Computer Incident Advisory Capability.
Established to provide computer security services to employees and contractors of
the United States Department of Energy. It's also useful for the rest of us.

RSA maintains a very useful cryptography FAQ that explains many of the confusing
aspects of cryptography.

Another useful cracker site is http://www.geocities.com/Area51/5537/. It's an

archive of information useful to crackers.

5) How do I make my Solaris web server more secure?

There are several steps to installing a "secure" Web server. But what is meant by
"secure"? Any machine that is publically accessible is necessarily unsecure. By
putting it directly on the Internet you've already opened the front door and allowed
anyone to come in and have a look. It is possible to guard the door and be sure the
visitors hang out in only one room though. By installing the operating system
carefully, adding tools, and adding monitoring software, your Web server can be
much safer than one that uses a default installation.

How secure does a web server have to be? The answer is, "very secure." There have
been several embarrassing incidents of graffitti on very public web sites, and worse.
Any number of toolkits exist that allow total amateurs to become holy terrors. The
good news is that if you can beat the popular intrusion toolkits, 90 percent of the
bad guys will go bother somebody else who's less secure.

While the following techniques can make a Solaris-based system very secure, they
have to be combined with a strong network architecture utilizing firewalls or filtering
routers (there's no point in controlling access by IP address if crackers can send you
packets with spoofed addresses). Such a strong architecture can only truly exist
when combined with a comprehensive security policy covering your entire
organization.

Furthermore, no system is ever perfectly secure. The extra services (Web servers
and anonymous FTP) that you run on the machine will always impact the overall
security of the system. Don't be tempted to install other software not listed in these
instructions. This machine is supposed to be secure, not convenient to administer.

5.0) Web server security checklist

Use this checklist to be sure your server is installed as securely as possible. Feel free
to add to the checklist for site-specific steps, or to share your additions with us if
they are general-purpose.

Check out Jean Chouanard's tool, solins. It automates a lot of the steps that are
described in this checklist.

• Keep the system disconnected from the network until all is ready.
• Install just the core operating system, adding only necessary packages.
• Install recommended and security patches.
• Strip down the OS by removing startup files (carefully!).
 • Disable IP forwarding in /etc/init.d/inetinit.
• Add a script to system startup to fix /tmp permissions (except on Solaris 2.5)
and mount it "nosuid".
• Verify that few processes are running via ps.
• Invoke sendmail from cron to process queued mail occasionally.
• Install and configure tcp_wrappers, S/Key, wu-ftp, and tripwire as
appropriate to your environment.
• Remove all but wu-ftp and telnet from /etc/inetd.conf, and edit
/etc/hosts.allow to limit the machines that can use these daemons.
• Enable logging of all telnet access to the system via syslog .
• Mount filesystems read-only and no-suid as appropriate.
• Make /noshell the default shell for all accounts except root and access.
• Remove /etc/auto_*, /etc/dfs/dfstab, p/var/spool/cron/crontabs/* (except
root).
• Use static routing.
• Test your system thoroughly, including allowed access and denied access, and
event logging.
• Consider replacing sendmail, syslog, bind, and crontab with more secure
versions.
• Install xntp for accurate time stamping.
• Consider enabling system accounting.
• Keep monitoring and testing the Web server.

Even if you only implement some of these security steps, your Web server will be
much more secure than a standard server installed with a standard Unix
configuration. But to be safe, go whole-hog and lock that server down with all of
these tools and techniques.

5.1) Hardware setup

Don't connect the system to a network before it is installed and secured.

Theoretically, some cracker could get in and drop back doors onto your system while
you are in the process of securing it. There are documented cases of people trying to
break into machines within five minutes of the machine being connected to the
Internet.

You will need a CD-ROM drive to do the install and a tape or floppy drive for loading
binaries and other files you created on other machines. These instructions are
appropriate for Solaris 2.5. If you use a different OS version, the security of the
resulting system may vary widely.

5.2) Install the OS

Start with the latest, solid version of Solaris 2.X. Each version of Solaris has been
more secure than its predecessor.

Solaris is quite flexible and contains many conveniences that make your work easier.
Unfortunately, all of this extra functionality also makes it easier for potential crackers
to gain access to your system. When attempting to create a secure system, the best
plan is to start with the simplest OS you can and then add packages one-by-one on
an "as-needed" basis. A limited OS configuration also boots and runs faster and is
less prone to crashing than a feature-rich version.

Under the Solaris install program, the most limited version of the OS you can select
is the Core SPARC installation cluster. In fact, even this cluster has too many
features. This cluster is what you should first install on your secure server. After you
have selected Core SPARC in the Sun installation screens, you will want to select
Customize and add the Terminal Information cluster which gives you support for
commonly used terminal emulators (such as xterm and others).

One of the advantages of the Core SPARC cluster is that it requires much less disk
space than most types of Solaris installs. The following partition table is appropriate
for machines loaded with the Core SPARC cluster:

s0: / 256 megabytes

s1: swap 256 megabytes
s2: overlap
s3:
s4:
s5:
s6: /local ??? megabytes (rest of the drive)
s7:

/var is large to allow for keeping extra logging and auditing information. Size swap
as appropriate for your hardware, but extra swap helps prevent "denial of service"
type attacks.

Now, using some other machine, ftp to sunsolve.sun.com:/pub/patches and

download the latest "recommended" (read: mandatory) patch cluster for Solaris 2.X
(2.X_Recommended.tar.Z). Put this tarfile on a tape, move it over to your secure
server, and install the patches. Some patches will not be installed because the
software they fix is not included in the Core SPARC cluster.

5.3) Strip down the OS

Under Solaris, you control what processes are started at boot time by adding and
removing files in /etc/rc[S0-3].d (the files in /etc/rc[S0-3].d being hard links to files
in /etc/init.d). Many of these startup scripts run processes that you absolutely do not
want running on your secure server: NFS is a prime example.

Consider removing all extraneous startup files from /etc/rc2.d. our advice and
remove everything from /etc/init.d except the following files:

K15rrcd S05RMTMPFILES K15solved S20sysetup

S72inetsvc S99audit S21perf
S99dtlogin K25snmpd S30sysid.net S99netconfig
S74syslog S75cron S92rtvc-config
K60nfs.server K65nfs.client S69inet
K92volmgt README S95SUNWmd.sync
S01MOUNTFSYS S71sysid.sys S88utmpd S95rrcd
This list will be larger or smaller depending on if you have a graphics card in the
machine, are using Solstice DiskSuite, and so on. Remove the files in /etc/rc3.d.

For Solaris 2.4, edit /etc/init.d/inetinit and add the following lines near the end of the
file:

ndd -set /dev/ip ip_forward_directed_broadcasts 0

ndd -set /dev/ip ip_forward_src_routed 0
ndd -set /dev/ip ip_forwarding 0

These lines turn off a feature called IP forwarding. Nearly any machine that uses IP-
based networking is capable of being a router, which means the bad guys could
route packets through your machine to machines on your internal network or other
secure machines that might trust the machine you are building. Turning off IP
forwarding disables this feature. ```

Also consider setting the "ip_strict_dst_multihoming" kernel variable via ndd

-set /dev/ip ip_strict_dst_multihoming 1

The solaris machine will then drop packets coming in through one interface that are
destined for another interface. This can prevent host spoofing.

* Under Solaris 2.5, creating a file called /etc/notrouter will turn off IP forwarding. To
allow routing again, simply remove /etc/notrouter and reboot. It's important to note
that there is a small time window between when this file is created and when routing
is disabled, theoretically allowing some routing to take place.

Under Solaris 2.4, add a new script called /etc/init.d/tmpfix:

#!/bin/sh
#ident "@(#)tmpfix 1.0 95/08/14"

if [ -d /tmp ]
then
/usr/bin/chmod 1777 /tmp
/usr/bin/chgrp sys /tmp
/usr/bin/chown root /tmp

and then ln /etc/init.d/tmpfix /etc/rc2.d/S79tmpfix so the script is invoked

at boot time. This script prevents an attack that would allow a system cracker to get
superuser access on your machine. It is not necessary under Solaris 2.5.

Some good advice from Casper Dik. Make sure that all of the startup routes run with
the proper umask, so the files they create and not group or world writeable. Here's
an easy method to insure this:

umask 022 # make sure umask.sh gets created with the proper mode
echo "umask 022" > /etc/init.d/umask.sh
for d in /etc/rc?.d
 do
ln /etc/init.d/umask.sh $d/S00umask.sh
done

Note: the trailing ".sh" of the scriptname is important, if you don't specify it, the
script will be executed in a sub-shell, not in the main shell that executes all other
scripts.

Remove /etc/auto_*. Removing /etc/init.d/autofs should have prevented the

automounter from starting up, but there's no reason to keep these files around
either.

Remove /etc/dfs/dfstab. Again, purging /etc/init.d should prevent the machine from
ever becoming an NFS server, but best to get rid of this file anyway.

Remove crontab files. You should remove all files from /var/spool/cron/crontabs
except the root file.

Use static routing. Create an /etc/defaultrouter file instead of relying on information

from routed (which can be spoofed). If you need to route through different
gateways, consider adding /usr/bin/route commands to /etc/init.d/inetinit instead of
running routed.

When you are done, reboot your machine. Always test boot file changes thoroughly.
When the machine comes back up, the output of ps -ef should look like this:

UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME COMD

root 0 0 55 Mar 04 ? 0:01 sched
root 1 0 80 Mar 04 ? 22:44 /etc/init -
root 2 0 80 Mar 04 ? 0:01 pageout
root 3 0 80 Mar 04 ? 33:18 fsflush
root 9104 1 17 Mar 13 console 0:00 /usr/lib/saf/ttymon -g
-h -p
myhost console login: -T sun -d /dev/console -l co
root 92 1 80 Mar 04 ? 5:15 /usr/sbin/inetd -s
root 104 1 80 Mar 04 ? 21:53 /usr/sbin/syslogd
root 114 1 80 Mar 04 ? 0:11 /usr/sbin/cron
root 134 1 80 Mar 04 ? 0:01 /usr/lib/utmpd
root 198 1 25 Mar 04 ? 0:00 /usr/lib/saf/sac -t 300
root 201 198 33 Mar 04 ? 0:00 /usr/lib/saf/ttymon
root 6915 6844 8 13:03:32 console 0:00 ps -ef
root 6844 6842 39 13:02:04 console 0:00 -sh

You will note that the /usr/lib/sendmail daemon is not running on the system: this is
a feature. Processes that need to send mail off the system can and will invoke
sendmail directly (possibly via some other mail user agent such as mailx), but you
do not have to run a sendmail daemon that listens on port 25 and processes the
mail queue immediately. You should add the following to root's crontab file:

0 * * * * /usr/lib/sendmail -q > /var/adm/sendmail.log 2>&1

This entry will invoke sendmail every hour to process any queued mail.

5.4) Install third-party software

You will need three pieces of software to help secure your system and allow you to
do safe administration of the machine over the network. Because there should be no
compiler on your secure server, you will have to build these packages on some other
machine and bring them onto the new machine you are building via a tape or floppy
disk.

First, configure S/Key for remote secure access. See Q5.6 for S/Key configuration
details.

If you plan to allow ftp access to your secure server (whether anonymous or for
administrative access), you need to get a copy of the WU-Archive ftp daemon. You
must get version 2.4 or later since previous versions have major security holes. If
you are going to grant administrative ftp access (as opposed to only anonymous
ftp), you must hack S/Key support into the ftp daemon binary. In the Crimelabs
S/Key distribution you will find an skey/misc/ftpd.c file that demonstrates how to
make a previous version of the WU-Archive ftp daemon support S/Key. You will
have to make the analogous changes to the v2.4 wu-ftpd source. You may also want
to read the wu-ftp FAQ

Compile and install the binaries (tcpd, wu-ftpd, and keyinit, keysu, and keysh
from the S/Key software) in /usr/local/bin. When compiling wu-ftpd you will have to
specify configuration and logging directories: we recommend you put the
configuration directory somewhere under /etc and the logfiles under /var (so they
have plenty of room to grow). See Q5.7 for detailed wu-ftp configuration.

Use /noshell for all non-login accounts. Make /noshell be the login shell for all users
except root and access. This shell disallows the login, while logging that a login
attempt occurred. Crackers will never be able to get access through these accounts.

5.5) Limit network access to the system

When your secure machine eventually gets into position on the network, you will
probably want to be able to use telnet and ftp to access the machine. Note that
you do not have to enable these services on your machine, making your machine
that much more secure, but that means you will always have to log in on the console
and move files on and off the machine using tape or floppy disk.

The telnet and ftp daemons are started by the inetd process. inetd's
configuration file, /etc/inet/inetd.conf, contains many other services besides telnet
and ftp, so it is best to simply remove this file and create a new one containing only
the following lines:

ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/local/bin/tcpd /usr/local/bin/wu-ftpd

telnet stream tcp nowait root /usr/local/bin/tcpd /usr/sbin/in.telnetd

Note that we are using tcpd to control access to both of these services and are using
the wu-ftpd binary instead of the ftp server that comes with Solaris. If you do not
want to allow anybody to telnet or ftp to you system, then simply remove the
appropriate line from inetd.conf, or remove the file altogether and inetd will not
even be started at boot time.

Access control for tcpd is configured using the /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny
files. tcpd looks at hosts.allow first, so you can permit a few machines to have
telnet or ftp access and then deny access to everybody else in hosts.deny (this is
often called a "default deny" policy). Here is a sample hosts.allow file:

ALL: 172.16.3.0/255.255.255.0

This would allow any user on any host on the 172.16.3.0 network to have access to
all of the services (telnet and ftp) on your machine. That user will still have to
supply the appropriate password or S/Key response (see below). Always use IP
addresses in the hosts.allow file, because hostname information can be spoofed (if
you are using the Internet Domain Name Service, or some other name service such
as NIS).

Now we want to disallow access for everybody else. Put the following line into
/etc/hosts.deny:

ALL: ALL: /usr/bin/mailx -s "%d: connection attempt from %c"

root@mydomain.com

Not only does this deny access to all services from all hosts, it causes tcpd to send
an alarm via e-mail that somebody is trying to get access to the machine. Substitute
the e-mail address of somebody who reads e-mail regularly for root@mydomain.com
in the above line.

Now you want tcpd to log all accesses via syslog. Put the following line in
/etc/syslog.conf:

auth.auth.notice;auth.info /var/log/authlog

The white-space on the line above must be tabs, or syslog will be unable to properly
parse the file and no logging will happen. Note that the logging facility is a
configurable parameter when building tcpd, but we recommend using AUTH, as
opposed to any LOCAL* facilities.

 Other files in /etc/init.d. Casper reiterates that the choice of which scripts to take
out of /etc/init.d is highly dependent upon which version of Solaris you are using.
The list of files we presented in our article was based on a Solaris 2.4 machine, so
make sure you know what you're doing if you try out the directions on a Solaris 2.5
machine.
 Sendmail. Instead of invoking sendmail from cron you can also run the daemon
without the -bd option. This will cause the daemon to be a queue-watcher only. We
prefer not to have the daemon running (one less process to worry about on the
system), but your mileage may vary.
 /etc/syslog.conf. There was a typo and an error in our instructions for configuring
/etc/syslog.conf for tcpd. The correct line is

auth.info /var/log/authlog

which will log all auth events with severity info and higher to /var/log/authlog. Don't
forget that the whitespace in this entry must be tabs.

5.6) Configure S/Key

You will need the S/Key package for remote, secure access. (Part of the logdaemon
toolset). S/Key is a one-time-only password mechanism. Instead of typing in your
password over the network, the S/Key software will send you a challenge string, and
you will compute a response on your local machine using the challenge and a secret
password that you have memorized. If you send the proper response back, the
S/Key software gives you access to the machine but the response you gave will
never again be valid for getting access to the machine. This means that if somebody
is using a packet sniffer, they cannot capture the response and use it to break into
your machine. The S/Key software also comes with a version of the su command
that uses S/Key challenge/response to grant superuser access safely over the
network.

To begin using S/Key, create an account that uses /usr/local/bin/keysh as its login
shell. You will login as this user with some reusable password of your choosing and
then keysh will force you to respond to an S/Key challenge before giving you a shell
prompt.

You should put

access:x:100:100:Access Account:/tmp:/usr/local/bin/keysh

at the end of /etc/passwd and

access:*LK*:6445::::::

at the end of /etc/shadow. Then use the passwd access command to set the
password for user access. The password you choose here doesn't have to be a very
good password, since you will be relying on keysh to provide the security for this
account.

Since /usr/local/bin/keysh is not a standard shell, you have to create an /etc/shells

file with these lines in it:

/sbin/sh
/usr/local/bin/keysh

Only users whose login shell is one of these two shells are allowed to access the
machine.
Now create an codepty /etc/skeykeys file and make it mode 600 and owned by root:

touch /etc/skeykeys
chmod 600 /etc/skeykeys
chown root /etc/skeykeys
chgrp root /etc/skeykeys

Use the keyinit access command to initialize the S/Key secret for user access. You
have completed the S/Key setup for user access.

You now want to allow the user access to use the keysu command to become
superuser. First change the entry for group root in /etc/group:

root::0:root,access

Only users listed in this entry are allowed to become superuser using keysu. Now
you have to use the keyinit root command to initialize the S/Key secret for the
superuser. I recommend using a different secret word than you used for user access.

At this point you may be tcodepted to simply remove /bin/su so that users are forced
to use keysu. Unfortunately, many scripts use /bin/su to start processes that do not
require full superuser access. You should, however, chmod 500 /bin/su so that only
the superuser can run this program.

Note the implicit assumption that access is a group account shared by several
administrators. You may feel more comfortable giving each administrator a separate
account with a different S/Key secret so that you have a better audit trail. The
downside to this approach is it creates more accounts that can have bad passwords
on them and allow crackers to gain access. Decide what makes sense for your
organization.

5.7) Configure wu-ftp

Configuring wu-ftpd is tricky, even for experts. When you compiled wu-ftpd, you
specified a directory where the daemon will look for its configuration files. This
configuration directory will contain a pid directory and three files. The
ftpconversions file should be empty but it must exist. The ftpusers file should
contain a list of all users in the machine's password file who should not be allowed to
ftp into the system. This file should contain every user in the password file: we will
add a user later who is allowed to ftp into the system. Most especially, root should
always be in the ftpusers file.

The last file in the configuration directory is the ftpaccess file. Rather than go into
full detail, here is a file that you can use if you do not want to allow anonymous ftp
into your system, but do want some users to be able to upload files to the machine:

class users real 172.16.3.*

log commands real
log transfers real inbound,outbound

This allows users to ftp from any host on network 172.16.3.0 and from nowhere
else (which is redundant if you are already using tcpd, but security in depth is a
Good Thing). All commands and file transfers will be logged to the log file you
specified when you compiled the daemon (which is why we recommended you put it
in /var where it has plenty of space to grow).

Configuring anonymous ftp is beyond the scope of this FAQ, but be warned to be
very careful, because it is easy to make a mistake and give away access to your
system. Review the documentation that comes with wu-ftpd for information and
pointers to other documents on anonymous ftp.

5.8) Limit access to files and file systems

Download and use fix-modes. The programs in this package clean up unsecure
group permissions on some system files and directories.

One way to thwart potential system crackers is to prevent them from running setuid
programs on your machine. The steps you have already taken make it unlikely that
anybody is going to get an unauthorized setuid program onto your machine, but a
little paranoia never hurt anybody in the security business.

Use the nosuid option in /etc/vfstab to prevent setuid programs from being executed
on any of your UFS filesystems:

/proc - /proc proc - no -

fd - /dev/fd fd - no -
swap - /tmp tmpfs - yes nosuid
/dev/dsk/c0t3d0s1 - - swap - no -

/dev/dsk/c0t3d0s0 /dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s0 / ufs 1 no

remount,nosuid
/dev/dsk/c0t3d0s4 /dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s4 /usr ufs 1 no ro
/dev/dsk/c0t3d0s5 /dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s5 /var ufs 1 no nosuid
/dev/dsk/c0t3d0s6 /dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s6 /local ufs 2 yes nosuid

Note that /usr contains some setuid executables (not the least of which are the
S/Key binaries in /usr/local/bin), so we mount it read-only instead of nosuid. The
root filesystem is mounted by the boot PROM, so it has to be remounted for the
nosuid directive to take effect.

You must not apply the nosuid directive to the special filesystems. Note that TMPFS
type filesystems (such as /tmp) can be mounted nosuid with no known ill effects.

5.9) Test the configuration

Reboot your system one last time and plug it into the network. Confirm that the
following are true:
 • You should be able to telnet and ftp to your secure server from the machines
you configured tcpd to allow.
• Trying to access the machine from any other machine should result in a denial
of access and an e-mail to the appropriate party.
• You should be able to login via telnet and ftp as user access, but not as root
or any other user.
• User access should be able to /usr/local/bin/keysu to become superuser.
• ps -ef should show very few processes; in particular, sendmail and the
various NFS processes should not be running.
• touch /usr/FOO should fail with an indication that the filesystem is read-only.
• As the superuser, copy the ps command to /, making sure to preserve the
setuid bit. access should not be able to get a process listing with /ps -ef.
Remove the /ps binary when you are done.

Congratulations! You have just created a very secure machine.

5.10) Step 10: Other suggestions

There are a number of freely available replacements for common system programs
that are significantly more secure than the versions provided with Solaris. Consider
replacing sendmail with the latest version. Replace the resolver library with the latest
version of bind. Replace syslog and crontab (check your local Archie server).

Your logging information is only as good as the timestamps in your files. Consider
running XNTP to keep your system clock in synch with accurate clock sources from
the Internet and with other machines on your networks. If somebody breaks in to
your network, you may have to correlate logs between dozens of systems, so their
clocks had better be in synch.

Before your system goes live on the network, get a copy of tripwire and make a
database of MD5 checksums for all files on your secure server. Put this database on
removable media (tape or floppy disk) so that somebody who breaks into your
system can't modify the data. Run tripwire at random (but frequent) intervals to
make sure nobody is tampering with your files.

Consider running process accounting so that you have a record of every command
executed on your system. You will pay a performance penalty (10 to 20%) if you
turn on process accounting. See man acct for more information.

Change your S/Key secrets regularly (every 30 days if you can stand it) and choose
good secret words (use non-alphanumeric characters and long secret words).
Change the secret words on the system console or use keyinit -s to change the
secret over the network. Do not use the same secret word for both the access and
root accounts.