[Freeipa-devel] Root accountability in a cluster

Matthew Booth mbooth at redhat.com
Thu Oct 18 22:18:57 UTC 2007


If I want the actions of a root user to be accountable, I can insist
that users log on as themselves and then use, eg, sudo to escalate their
privileges. If I want to run a command as root on a cluster, though,
this appears to fall down. I can implement kerberos authentication for
the cluster so that I can seamlessly hop from machine to machine without
reauthenticating. However, I cannot transfer my escalated privileges in
a similar manner, without doing something like running sudo on every
target node.

Is the following feasible:
* SSH to root at foo.example.com
* Present credentials for mbooth at EXAMPLE.COM
* mbooth at EXAMPLE.COM is on an allowed list for root
* I am logged in directly as root
* My audit context is mbooth

I think all but the last step is probably possible, but I'm not sure of
that. Is it possible? Is it sane? Is anybody working on it?

Thanks,

Matt
-- 
Matthew Booth, RHCA, RHCSS
Red Hat, Global Professional Services

M:       +44 (0)7977 267231
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