Unix administration - Re: Beginner Question: Allowing sudo to vi hosts file

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Re: Beginner Question: Allowing sudo to vi hosts file

Michael Paoli

2006-08-12, 7:19 pm

Michael Paoli wrote:
> underh20.scubadiving@gmail.com wrote:
>
> vi is far too unrestricted (and also generally big and complex) to be
> securely used by root to only and exactly edit one specific file
> pathname and not be allowed to do anything else.
>
> What's wrong with:
> $ vi hosts
> $ sudo /bin/cp hosts /etc/inet/hosts

Ah, sillly me - that would allow hosts to be read even in locations
where it shouldn't be readable.

How about :
$ vi hosts
$ <hosts sudo dd of=/etc/inet/hosts