Cops.1.04.README

* cops.1.04.tar.gz

cops.1.04.tar.gz

* cops104+.tar.gz

cops104 .tar.gz

Welcome! You now hold in your hands (terminal?) a collection of

security tools that are designed specifically to aid the typical UNIX
systems administrator, programmer, operator, or consultant in the
oft-neglected area of computer security.

   If you're the kind of boy/girl/rock who thinks "man pages are for
weenies, let's type 'make' and run the damn thing," then you might read
one file, "quickstart", for a lightning-fast intro.  Otherwise, reading
this now might prove enlightening.

   The package, which will henceforth be referred to as COPS (Computer
Oracle and Password System), can be broken down into three key parts.
The first is the actual set of programs that attempt to automate
security checks that are often performed manually (or perhaps with self-
written short shell scripts or programs) by a systems administrator.
The second part is the documentation, which details how to set up,
operate, and interpret the results of the programs.  It also includes a
paper or two on COPS itself.  Third, COPS is an evolving beast, so it
includes a list of possible extensions that might appear in future
releases.  In addition, it includes some short papers on various topics
in UNIX security and pointers to other works in UNIX security that could
not be included at this time, due to space or other restrictions.

   This document contains four sections:

      1) What is COPS?
      2) What is COPS _not_?
      3) Installation, Execution, and Continuing Use of COPS
      4) Disclaimer and End Notes


1) What is COPS?
-----------------

   The heart of COPS is a collection of about a dozen (actually, a few
more, but a dozen sounds so good) programs that each attempt to tackle
a different problem area of UNIX security.  Here is what the programs
currently check, more or less (they might check more, but never less,
actually):

o  file, directory, and device permissions/modes.

o  poor passwords.

o  content, format, and security of password and group files.

o  the programs and files run in /etc/rc* and cron(tab) files.

o  existance of root-SUID files, their writeability, and whether or not
   they are shell scripts.

o  a CRC check against important binaries or key files to report any
   changes therein. 

o  writability of users home directories and startup files (.profile,
   .cshrc, etc.) 

o  anonymous ftp setup.

o  unrestricted tftp, decode alias in sendmail, SUID uudecode problems, 
   hidden shells inside inetd.conf, rexd running in inetd.conf.

o  miscellaneous root checks -- current directory in the search path,
   a "+" in /etc/host.equiv, unrestricted NFS mounts, ensuring root is 
   in /etc/ftpusers, etc.

o  dates of CERT advisories vs. key files.  This checks the dates that
   various bugs and security holes were reported by CERT against the
   actual date on the file in question.  A positive result doesn't
   always mean that a bug was found, but it is a good indication that
   you should look at the advisory and file for further clues.  A
   negative result, obviously, does not mean that your software has no
   holes, merely that it has been modified in SOME way (perhaps merely
   "touch"'ed) since the advisory was sent out.

o  the Kuang expert system.  This takes a set of rules and tries to
   determine if your system can be compromised (for a more complete list 
   of all of the checks, look at the file "release.notes" or
   "cops.report"; for more on Kuang, look at at "kuang.man".)

   All of the programs merely warn the user of a potential problem --
COPS DOES NOT ATTEMPT TO CORRECT OR EXPLOIT ANY OF THE POTENTIAL
PROBLEMS IT FINDS!  COPS either mails or creates a file (user
selectable) of any of the problems it finds while running on your
system.  Because COPS does not correct potential hazards it finds, it
does _not_ have to be run by a privileged account (i.e. root or
whomever.)  The only security check that should be run by root to get
maximum results is the SUID checker: although it can be run as an
unprivileged user, it should be run as root so that it can find all the
SUID files in a system.  In addition, if key binaries are not
world-readable, only executable, the CRC checking program ("crc.chk")
needs to be run as a privileged user to read the files in question to
get the result.)  Also note that COPS cannot used to probe a host
remotely; all the tests and checks made require a shell that is on the
host being tested.

   The programs that make up COPS were originally written primarily in
Bourne shell (using awk, sed, grep, etc.) for (hopefully) maximum
portability, with a few written in C for speed (most notably parts of
the Kuang expert system and the implementation of fast user home
directory searching), but the entire system should run on most BSD and
System V machines with a minimum of tweaking.  In addition, a perl
version is included that, while perhaps not as portable as the shell/C
version, has some advantages.

   COPS includes various support programs as well.  The primary one is
CARP (COPS Analysis and Report Program).  CARP is a results interpreter
that is designed to analyze and generate a summary on various COPS reports
from a complete network or set of hosts.

2) What is COPS _not_?
-----------------------

   COPS mostly provides a method of checking for common procedural
errors.  It is not meant to be used as a replacement for common sense or
user/operator/administrative alertness!  Think of it as an aid, a first
line of defense, not as an impenetrable shield against security woes.
An experienced wrong-doer could easily circumvent *any* protection that
COPS can give.  However, COPS *can* aid a system in protecting its users
from (their own?) ignorance, carelessness, and the occasional malcontent
user.

   Once again, COPS does not correct any errors found.  There are
several reasons for this: first and foremost, computer security is a
slippery beast.  What is a major breach in security at one site may be a
standard policy of openness at another site.  Additionally, in order to
correct all problems it finds, it would have to be run as a privileged
user; I'm not going to go into the myriad problems of running SUID shell
scripts (see the bibliography at the end of the technical report
"cops.report" for pointer to a good paper on this subject by Matt
Bishop; look at the included paper "SU" for pointers on how to write a
SUID program) -- suffice to say it's a bad idea that can give an
attacker privileges equal to whatever account the shell is SUID to.

3) Installation, Execution, and Continuing Use of COPS
-------------------------------------------------------

   There are two versions of COPS that can be run.  The original ("COPS
classic"?) needs nothing more than a C compiler and the standard shell
tools that any (or most any) UNIX system should have: awk, sed, grep,
etc.  For information on how to configure and run this version, look at
the file "README.2.sh".  The most important thing to do is to run the
shell program "reconfig" if you have a system V or a non-standard
Berkeley UNIX system -- the paths to the programs that COPS uses are
hard-coded, and this will reconfigure the paths so that COPS can find
these programs.

   If you have installed perl on your system (I think it works with perl
versions > 3.18) and would like to try the perl version, look at the
file "README.2.pl" for details on how to use that.  There are several
advantages and disadvantages to using the perl version, so if you have
perl, I would advise trying both packages to see which one better suits
your environment.

   If you need help to interpret the results of COPS, look in the file
"warnings", in the "doc" directory.  All of the individual programs in
the COPS package have a man page there as well.

   For continuing use, multiple architecture sites, or other advanced
COPS topics, check out "README.3".

  There are additional "readme" files for the following topics: Apollo
and Xenix machines, C2 and other shadow passord files, NIS/Yellow Pages,
and the COPS filter.  Look at the corresponding readme (note lower case)
file for these in the "docs" directory -- e.g.  "docs/readme.apollo."

4) Disclaimer and End Notes
----------------------------

   COPS is meant to be a tool to aid in the tightening of security, not
as a weapon to be used by an enemy to find security flaws in a system.
It may be argued that allowing anyone to have access to such a tool may
be dangerous, but hopefully the overall benefit for systems that use
this package will outweigh any negative impact.  To me it is akin to a
law enforcement problem -- although telling the public how to break into
a house may foster a slight rise in break-in attempts, the overall rise
in public awareness of what to defend themselves against would actually
result in a drop in break-ins.  The crackers with black hats already
know how to crush system defenses and have similar tools, I'm sure.
It's time we fought back.

   COPS is not the final answer to anyone's security woes.  You can use
the system as long as you realize that COPS has no warranty, implied or
otherwise, and that any problems that you may have with it are not my or
any of the other authors' fault.  I will certainly attempt to help you
solve them, if I am able.  If you have ideas for additional programs or
a better implementation of any of the programs here, I would be very
interested in seeing them.  COPS was the work of a LOT of people, both
in writing code and in the testing phase (thanks, beta testers!).  For a 
complete list of contributors, look at the file "XTRA_CREDIT".

   So, good luck, and I hope you find COPS useful as we plunge into UNIX
of the 1990's.

   dan farmer
   January 31, 1989
   (Now January 31, 1990)
   (Now November 17, 1991... how time goes on...)

# include "./disclaimer"

p.s.  Just for snix, here are some of the machine/OS's I know this
sucker works on; far and away the most common problem was getting that
stupid password cracking program to compile, followed by systems without
the -ms package to nroff.  Some minor problems with config files -- I
*think* these are all ok:

DECstation 2100, 3100, 5000, Ultrix 2.x, 3.x, 4.x (Ultrix is braindead.)

Sun 3's, 4's  (incl. Solbourne and clones) -- 3.x, 4.x
Gould 9080 Powernode, hacked up Gould OS (whatever it is)
sequent S-87 symmetry, dynix V3.x (both att & bsd universes; att required
                       "BRAINDEADFLAGS = -lcrypt" to be uncommented.
ETA-10P, Sys V R3 based
Convex boxes, all types, OS's (up to 9.x, the most recent)
Apollo dn3000 & dsp90, Domain SR 9.7, 10.x (see "readme.apollo")
Vax 11/780, 4.x BSD (Mt. Xinu, tahoe and stock)
Vaxstation, MicroVax, Vax 6320 & 8800, Ultrix 2.x, 3.x, 4.x
HP900/370, HP-UX 6.x, 7.x
Cray 2 & Y-MP, UNICOS 5.x, 6.x
Amdahl 5880, UTS 580-1.2.3
SGI 2500's, IRIX GL 3.6
SGI 4D's, IRIX System V Release 3.x
'286 & '386 Boxes, running Xenix (see "readme.xenix")
AT&T 3B2 & 3B1, SysVR[3-4]
CADMUS box (R3000 & 68020 cpu), SysVR3.2
Pyramid, running 4.4c and 5.1a

Apple Mac IIci, running AUX 2.x.  The "test -z" seemed broken on this,
but I only had a brief chance to test it out, but kuang didn't like it
as a result.  I'll get a working version soon; everything seemed ok
(change the /etc/servers line in "misc.chk").

NeXT, 1.x 
(password stuff is different on this machine, though; cracking is
strange.  Diffs anyone?  Also, /bin/test vs. shell builtin "test" is
*weird*.)

Multimax 320, 12 Processors, 64Mb Memory, Encore Mach Version B1.0c (Beta)
(no crypt(3) on this machine.  Sigh.)

IBM rs6000, AIX 3.1 (DEADBEEF about sums it up.)

  I've lost track of the others.  If you have some bizzare piece of
hardware that you've run it on, I'd like to hear about it...