topic Re: how to know who use su command in Operating System - Tru64 Unix

how to know who use su command

jousif — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 08:04:47 GMT

Hi Admins,
some users use su command to become root user
I want to know how can I dicover these users
please advise.

Re: how to know who use su command

Victor Semaska_3 — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 08:10:28 GMT

In order for a user to become root using 'su' they have to be part of the 'system' group.

I guess the easiest way to see who's in the system group is to look in the /etc/group file.

Vic

Re: how to know who use su command

AwadheshPandey — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 09:08:11 GMT

view sulog file for view successful attempts of su.

Awadhesh

Re: how to know who use su command

Ivan Ferreira — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 09:29:02 GMT

Create a file called /var/adm/sialog. This file will log security related records, and the use of su, like this:

Successful authentication for su from root to ferreiri

Re: how to know who use su command

Ann Majeske — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 15:36:30 GMT

The sialog file is designed for temporary use in debugging sia problems, it is not designed for long term use as an auditing tool. Leaving the sialog running for long periods can cause serious problems on your system including performance problems with logins, filling up the /var filesystem, and potential system hangs.

To audit the use of the su command you can use the audit subsystem. See the Security Administration manual for information on the audit subsystem.

Ann Majeske

Re: how to know who use su command

Deb Kenney — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 06:30:20 GMT

You could always check out the /var/adm/syslog.dated/current/auth.log file.

Re: how to know who use su command

Ivan Ferreira — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 06:39:09 GMT

The sialog file won't be a problem, we use that, and we use the /usr/lbin/logclean command to rotate the file.

Re: how to know who use su command

Ann Majeske — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 12:56:15 GMT

Ivan,

Just because you haven't had any problems using sialog all the time (that you have been able to attribute to using sialog), doesn't mean that everyone can use sialog all the time. I have seen examples of all the problems that I listed on systems with the sialog left enabled for long periods of time.

The sialog was designed to only be used short term to diagnose sia related problems. I was on the development team, I talked to the people who developed it. It was a documentation error in the man page that this restriction was not clearly stated in the man page as originally written.

Ann

Re: how to know who use su command

Ivan Ferreira — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 13:32:16 GMT

Ann Majeske, thanks for the information. I did not readed that in the security manual. But, is su operations logged anywhere else? We have all in debug mode in syslog but it does not works.

Re: how to know who use su command

Ann Majeske — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 15:55:58 GMT

Ivan,

As I stated in my previous reply, you can use the Audit subsystem to audit the use of the su command. See the Security Administration manual for more information.

Ann

Re: how to know who use su command

jousif — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 03:18:33 GMT

many thanks to alls,