[LEDE-DEV] running stuff as !root

[Radu Anghel]

/* sending again because i hit 'reply' instead of 'reply all' :) */

On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 8:29 AM, John Crispin <john at phrozen.org> wrote:
>
> ok, there had been some discussion about building a super daemon that
> runs, then ld-preloading bind() and co and using ubus to transport
> sockets around. using caps or /proc sounds like a good i between until
> such a daemon exists
>

Most daemons I know of that need to bind to ports <1024 start as root
and after binding to the port they drop privileges to the privileges
of the user specified in their config file. For those daemons just
adding a user and specifying it in their config file should be enough.
For the daemons that don't need to bind to <1024 just starting them
from their own user account is ok as they don't need additional
privileges.

For example the dnsmasq daemon has these options:

# If you want dnsmasq to change uid and gid to something other
# than the default, edit the following lines.
#user=
#group=

I don't think that integrating such functionality in ubus or some
other LEDE-only super-daemon is a good idea. Config options +
capabilities for those daemons withut such options is a good way of
doing this in my opinion. Also use different users for different
daemons, as others said.

Radu