passwd and USER_CHAUTHTOK

Steve Grubb sgrubb at redhat.com
Wed Aug 30 19:02:53 UTC 2017


On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 10:22:43 AM EDT Steve Grubb wrote:
> Hello Philippe,
> 
> Thanks for reporting this (and the other bug which is in my queue to work
> on).
> On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 3:56:10 AM EDT Maupertuis Philippe wrote:
> > Hi
> > On a new redhat 7.4, passwd -S to check the status of a user generates the
> > following event  : node=xxxxx type=USER_CHAUTHTOK msg=audit(28/08/17
> > 16:34:18.632:54145) : pid=31134 uid=root auid=xxxxx ses=3866
> > msg='op=password status displayed for user id=ftp exe=/usr/bin/passwd
> > hostname= xxxxx addr=? terminal=pts/1 res=success'
> > 
> > According to
> > https://github.com/linux-audit/audit-documentation/wiki/SPEC-User-Account-
> > L
> > ifecycle-Events  USER_CHAUTHTOK means that the user  has successfully
> > changed his password. In that case no change were done, only a query as it
> > appears in the msg field
> > 
> > The text format is even more disturbing :
> > On xxxxx at 16:34:18 28/08/17 xxxxx, acting as root, successfully
> > changed-password using /usr/bin/passwd The real action and the target user
> > (ftp) is entirely lost in the text format.
> > 
> > I would say that this message should not have been generated in the first
> > place.
> 
> I would agree. I'll make a patch to remove it.

In case anyone wants this update to passwd, it is here:

https://pagure.io/passwd/c/c461efa0b6f9134adbb1440bb8cef2d3bf81620d?branch=master


> I looked around the auditing in passwd and it looks like it has not been
> updated as everything else has been to eliminate dangling text. So, it's
> wholly unsuited as is for text format output. I'll make a second patch to
> update the auditing to modern standards. Its probably not been touched in a
> decade.

And the other audit cleanups here:

https://pagure.io/passwd/c/d02e152112b28717eece1d64027a325439968e9f?branch=master

https://pagure.io/passwd/c/137db0d6f2fd668081133c172ae7726d28ce95b6?branch=master

-Steve




More information about the Linux-audit mailing list