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r* Programs Being Removed from OpenBSD -current

Posted by timothy on from the but-it's-still-an-important-letter dept.

moonboy writes: "This post over at OpenBSD Journal tells of the r* programs (rsh, rlogin, rcopy, etc) being removed from the -current tree. Can Telnet and FTP be far behind? I say good riddance."

6 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Darwin? by linuxbert · · Score: 3, Interesting

    hmm, im not very familier with bsd and darwin developments, but i wonder if apple will follow suit.
    i just checked my 10.2.4 and it has rlogin, and perl. Perl is quite usefull, but i agree it shouldnt be part of a default install. the rtools are a big risk, and rightly should be gotten rid of. with ssh and secure versions of most of these r tools, there existance is moot.

    Apple prides itself on the power of unix, simplicity of a mac, and i think it works great. (havent touched my pc in weeks) but i question if a desktop os really needs the rtools.

  2. Re:BSD is not dying, it's busy cleaning by sigwinch · · Score: 5, Interesting
    And, as another poster pointed out, telnet and (to a lesser extent) ftp have to be next on the chopping block.
    I disagree. FTP is a fine way to serve files to anonymous clients. A lot of data traffic simply doesn't benefit (much) from security. Unless you are going to replace it with HTTP over SSL and institute a person-to-person key fingerprint distribution process, you might as well keep using FTP.

    As for telnet, using it to run login shells is idiocy, but it's the only standardized way to run interactive services. It comes disabled by default, so including it is not a security risk. And when you someday need a little interactive network program *right now*, it's damn convenient. E.g., if you needed to stick a load monitor on your database server, just write a little program that talks on standard input and output, and tell telnet to use it instead of a shell. Instant results, little risk of breaking anything, and any client can access it.

    --

    --
    Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end. ;-)

  3. Symbolic Importance by 4of12 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I doubt anyone smart enough to install and run OpenBSD is going to be stupid enough to run the r suite of utilities.

    But I have to pause in remembrance, because, after all, they are the Berkeley r-suite.

    I used them for many years, alongside telnet and ftp, back in the 1980's when 4.2BSD was distributed with my computer. Anyone remember doing tilde escapes to pop back to the local machine?

    Even though their security model is insufficient in this present day and age, they really helped to pave the way in showing how remote computers could be accessed in a convenient and powerful way.

    It's fitting that a BSD will be the first to retire this venerable set of programs.

    R.I.P., r-suite.

    --
    "Provided by the management for your protection."
    1. Re:Symbolic Importance by glitchvern · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You can still do tilde escapes in ssh or at least openssh.

      fox:~ % ~?
      Supported escape sequences:
      ~. - terminate connection
      ~R - Request rekey (SSH protocol 2 only)
      ~^Z - suspend ssh
      ~# - list forwarded connections
      ~& - background ssh (when waiting for connections to terminate)
      ~? - this message
      ~~ - send the escape character by typing it twice
      (Note that escapes are only recognized immediately after newline.)

  4. Thank Fordness... by fooguy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's about time.

    I'm an OpenBSD user, and a Perl advocate. I love Perl, but not everyone does. Not everyone needs it, just like not everyone needs Python or tcl/tk.

    OpenBSD is the closest thing I've seen to an operating system in a long time. When I install an OS, I want to chose what to turn on, not hope I turned off everything I didn't need. I want to know dozens of eyes have done their best to be sure the OS is secure.

    The ports collection is far better than any package management tool I've used (Sun pkgadd, Linux RPM). Not only is it good, but OpenBSD's is the best of any BSD I've used (Free and Net) because it's clean. There is only a tiny chance a port you try and build won't work (::leering at FreeBSD::) and it's so easy that I don't mind doing a make;make install to get Perl.

    All that said, Theo's recent rant about r* utils makes perfect sense. Get rid of it!

    And while we're at it, toss telnet out with the bathwater. Anyone who isn't using ssh to connect to a remote machine is *begging* to get owned. The only way some people are going to use secure tools is if we force them to. I know at work until I turn telnet off people will use that over ssh because it's familiar, because they don't want to upgrade the 100 year old version of QVTTerm they have.

    As for FTP - don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. I've been using scp for so long I get physically ill when I see this:

    ftp>

    Yeah it works, but it's a gaping hole. If people want it, fine, but build the daemon you want from the ports collection. The idea of inetd housing all these "critical" services is just an invite to get owned.

    I'm not a huge security nut (my boss won't use a grocery store card because his "marketing data is worth more than what they give me"), but in the battle for securie systems, we are losing! Servers here at work are breeding like rabbits, and everyone is not as savy as you and I. We need to do whatever we can to nudge them in the right direction, not just for their own sake, but for everyones sake.

    --
    "All I ever wanted was to see Larry Wall give Bill Gates a Perl necklace."
    http://www.eisenschmidt.org/jweisen
    1. Re:Thank Fordness... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      The only time I was ever "0wned", it was via the SSH server. So I'm less than sanguine about its security.