Root dir ownership and Sendmail DOS

9-Sep-2004

Dear Friend,

I am a security-novice linux administrator. I am seeking
advice/opinion of certain incident on my server. It would
appears that my root directory "/" ownership had suddently
changed into become "world writable" (I am not certain
this was caused by my own action). And the sendmail server
is unable to receive any incoming messages (DOS results).
Sendmail is running at program listing (ps x) all the
time, just the incoming mails were not in. My server
runs Linux kernel-2.4.18 (tarball compiled) with
sendmail-8.11.2-14 (rpm installed).

My question here is:

1. Is it a correct interpretation that ownership change
in my root directory "/" had case such sendmail DOS
results ?

2. Is this a sign of possible intrusion or anyother
trojan/viruses.

Please kindly share any such instance/knowledge directly
to "netipr@senet.com.au","uneoo@netipr.org". Do not
reply to this BBS because I do not monitor this bbs.

Regards, U Ne Oo.
http://netipr.org/~uneoo/

<uneoo@netipr.org> wrote in message news:413f9074@dnews.tpgi.com.au

> It would appears that my root directory "/" ownership had
> suddently changed into become "world writable" (I am not
> certain this was caused by my own action). And the
> sendmail server is unable to receive any incoming
> messages ...
[...]
> Do not reply to this BBS because I do not monitor this bbs.

You post it here, you read it here. Usenet is not your private consultant,
nor is it a "bbs".

If you'll take the elementary-level measure of examining the maillog, you'll
see the clear message that the world-writable directory tree is the reason
for the sendmail failure.

tony

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