[cobalt-users] RaQ4i - Crontab Died After Kernel Update --FIXED

[Barbara - <thebizworkers@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ya know... I really should take some of the things I
read on these Cobalt lists with a grain of salt. I
just figured out what killed crontab, even though the
daemon was still running. 

A week or two ago, I came across a post on the Cobalt
security list regarding a suggestion on how to "stop
naughty CGI 'exploits'" (as it was stated -
http://list.cobalt.com/pipermail/cobalt-security/2001-September/003445.html).
It was obviously of good intentions as the poster
suggested to chmod 0700 /usr/sbin/inetd, which should
stop anyone but root from running inetd. Thus as
stated, would prevent the easiest way of getting root
in the known universe (via inetd). 

So I thought what a good idea, I'll try that on my
system. Luckily, I was first smart enough to check to
make sure inetd wasn't set with the SUID bit on, as I
knew that would cause a major nightmare and would
certainly break something if it was on. It wasn't,
just plain old 755 permissions, so I fiugred it was
safe to change permissions to 700 as I could always
change it back if it did break something. 

Well, it seemed to work until the latest kernel was
installed, then my crontab went tits up and stopped
working all together. Then I thought maybe that was
the problem, so I reset permissions back to 755 and
rebooted the machine and everything is back to normal.
Crontab is happy and working again just as it should
be. 

Just goes to show you, we all might want to think
twice before going under the hood just on some
recommendation. Who knows what might break.

Take Care
Barbara

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