Re: [SOLVED] Re: [gentoo-user] msmtp vs. nullmailer

["Walter Dnes" <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>]

On Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 06:49:00PM +0100, Mick wrote

> This is all good and dandy, but letting user "nobody" read your
> mail accoutn passwd may not be the safest approach to sending email
> messages from your machine.

  I think you missed the point.  The "NOPASSWD:" option means that this
one particular user "nobody" ***DOES NOT NEED THE ROOT PASSWORD*** to
execute this one particular command which normally requires "root" level
privileges.  I repeat, it has no need for the password.  This is done
with a sudoers entry like the following example.

michael michaelsmachine = (root) NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/nullmailer

  The only problem might be convincing your program that the mail
command is...

sudo /usr/sbin/nullmailer

  You can tell it to run a script that contains that command.  Having
passwords floating around on disk in clear text is a *BAD* idea.  Some
"user friendly distros", like Ubuntu, let you run *ANY* command as root
if you prefix it with "sudo".  That can be done with the keyword "ALL"

michael michaelsmachine = (root) NOPASSWD: ALL

  I do not like it on general principle.  It gives away the store as far
as security is concerned.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications