Re: passwd and USER_CHAUTHTOK

[Steve Grubb <sgrubb@redhat.com>]

Hello Philippe,

Thanks for reporting this (and the other bug which is in my queue to work on).

On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 3:56:10 AM EDT Maupertuis Philippe wrote:
> Hi
> On a new redhat 7.4, passwd -S to check the status of a user generates the
> following event  : node=xxxxx type=USER_CHAUTHTOK msg=audit(28/08/17
> 16:34:18.632:54145) : pid=31134 uid=root auid=xxxxx ses=3866
> msg='op=password status displayed for user id=ftp exe=/usr/bin/passwd
> hostname= xxxxx addr=? terminal=pts/1 res=success'
> 
> According to
> https://github.com/linux-audit/audit-documentation/wiki/SPEC-User-Account-L
> ifecycle-Events  USER_CHAUTHTOK means that the user  has successfully
> changed his password. In that case no change were done, only a query as it
> appears in the msg field
> 
> The text format is even more disturbing :
> On xxxxx at 16:34:18 28/08/17 xxxxx, acting as root, successfully
> changed-password using /usr/bin/passwd The real action and the target user
> (ftp) is entirely lost in the text format.
> 
> I would say that this message should not have been generated in the first
> place.

I would agree. I'll make a patch to remove it.

I looked around the auditing in passwd and it looks like it has not been 
updated as everything else has been to eliminate dangling text. So, it's 
wholly unsuited as is for text format output. I'll make a second patch to 
update the auditing to modern standards. Its probably not been touched in a 
decade.

-Steve

> If I really change a user password  by passwd games , I get :
> node=xxxxx type=USER_CHAUTHTOK msg=audit(28/08/17 17:04:36.683:54299) :
> pid=774 uid=root auid=xxxxx ses=3866 msg='op=change password id=games
> exe=/usr/bin/passwd hostname=xxxxx addr=? terminal=pts/1 res=success' and
> in the text format :
> On xxxxx at 17:04:36 28/08/17 xxxxx, acting as root, successfully
> changed-password games using /usr/bin/passwd On xxxxx at 17:04:36 28/08/17
> xxxxx, acting as root, successfully changed-password using /usr/bin/passwd
> This time the first line describes accurately what happened but I find the
> second one misleading since it is really the same command and not an
> additional change.
> 
> Please let me know if I missed something.
> Philippe
> 
> 
> 
> 
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