Securing and Optimizing Linux: RedHat Edition -A Hands on Guide
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14.1. sXid

SUID/SGID files can be a security hazard. To reduce the risks, we have previously already removed the s bits from root-owned programs that won't absolutely require such privilege, but future and existing files may be set with these s bits enabled without your notification.

sXid is an all in one suid/sgid monitoring program designed to be run from cron on a regular basis. Basically it tracks any changes in your s[ug]id files and folders. If there are any new ones, ones that aren't set any more, or they have changed bits or other modes then it reports the changes in an easy to read format via email or on the command line. sXid will automate the task to find all SUID/SGID on your server and report them to you. Once installed you can forget it and it will do the job for you.

These installation instructions assume the following:

Packages can be dowloaded from the sXid FTP Site:ftp://marcus.seva.net/pub/sxid/ and You must be sure to download: sxid_4.0.1.tar.gz or whatever the latest version is.

Warning

The instructions explained here in this book are applicable to the version number mentioned and you need to consult the README and/or INSTALL with in the tarball of the version you have downloaded for any changes, additions and deletions etc..

Important: It is a good idea to make a list of files on the system before you install sXid, and one afterwards, and then compare them using diff to find out what file it placed where. Simply run find /* > sXid1 before and find /* > sXid2 after you install the software, and use diff sXid1 sXid2 > sXid-Installed to get a list of what changed.

Decompress the tarball tar.gz. 

         [root@deep] /#cp sxid_version.tar.gz /var/tmp/
         [root@deep] /#cd /var/tmp
         [root@deep ] /tmp#tar xzpf sxid_version.tar.gz

To Compile and Optimize move into the new sXid directory and type the following commands on your terminal: 

         [root@deep tmp]#cd sxid-4.0.1
         [root@deep ] /sxid-4.0.1#make install
The above commands will configure the software to ensure your system has the necessary functionality and libraries to successfully compile the package, compile all source files into executable binaries, and then install the binaries and any supporting files into the appropriate locations. Please do a cleanup later: 

         [root@deep] /#cd /var/tmp
         [root@deep ] /tmp#rm -rf sxid-version/ sxid_version_tar.gz
The rm command as used above will remove all the source files we have used to compile and install sXid. It will also remove the sXid compressed archive from the /var/tmp directory.

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