Re: user uid problems

[Ben Goren <ben_(_at_)_trumpetpower_(_dot_)_com>]

On Mon, Dec 16, 2002 at 07:15:17AM -0500, Frank Bax wrote:

> I'm am experiencing an intermittant problem on my 2.9 box.

Stop right  there. First, 2.9, being  more than a  couple releases
old, is no longer  officially supported. Nobody's seriously looked
at that code in some time. There have been various bugs discovered
in newer versions  of OpenBSD, including one  remote root hole. If
you haven't  back-ported the various appropriate  security patches
(and  verified their  validity on  the old  software) then  you're
vulnerable to attack.

> A user  account that is not  used very often has  the following
> problem - sometimes when I log into this account, various wierd
> problems occur with numerous commands  and when I do 'whois', I
> get 1010 instead of the username.   If I then logon as root and
> run vipw and force a save of file (without making any changes),
> the problem goes  away.  Some days/weeks later  it will present
> itself again (with no reboot in between).  Any ideas what to do
> about this?

This *could* be easily attributed  to an unwelcome visitor on your
computer. Then  again,  it  could also  be  something  honest. I'm
definitely getting ``You've been hax0r3d'' vibes here, though.

I'm  not one  to suggest  a format  and re-install  of non-Windows
computers just  to fix a  (seemingly) minor problem. I'll  make an
exception in  your case, though. You  *really* need to  be running
something  modern,  prefereably  3.2, so  there's  the  install. I
wouldn't trust anything on  a (presumably unpatched) 2.9 computer,
so there's the format.

Good luck,

b&

--
Ben Goren
 mailto:ben_(_at_)_trumpetpower_(_dot_)_com
 http://www.trumpetpower.com/
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