9:31 PM EST response? You must not be in the US!
Yes, I mean mac addresses with a filter is what I'm looking for. We
dont make explicit roles for xboxes and PS2s, our campus is very small
(~1500 students), so we just throw in a filter for them. Similarly, if
users are found to be 'doing wrong', either a virus that isnt picked up
by CCA or weird traffic or something else abnormal, they get an explicit
block on their mac address as a filter. It works well from the sysadmin
team, but, often times there isn't communication with the helpdesk
staff. This can be very frustrating for a help desk student trying to
get a computer to login when it just 'doesnt work'.
I'm building an interface for our help desk that will show, in real
time, the users who have blocks in CCA and for what reason (the
description field), as well as some information about our switches. I
would never try to write to the database directly, I don't understand
enough of how CCA works to do that. We were fully briefed by our
original reps that while we have root access to the box, if we screw
something up, the vendor response is going to be to format and start over.
As an aside, I'd also like to say what a ridiculous resource you are.
I've never seen any product for any major vendor that has 'someone on
the inside' active on the listserv. I hope more companies adopt this
sort of communication in the future.
Thanks,
Alex
Rajesh Nair (rajnair) wrote:
>Alex,
>
>Yes, this is not a forum for feature requests. Ideally, you would do
>that through Cisco's PERS system that tracks enhancements (similar to
>CDETS tracking bugs). But, it doesn't hurt for me to understand what it
>is that you are trying to do. This forum has been great about telling
>us what is wrong with the product and what can be improved and while we
>cannot do everything that is asked of us, we try to keep adding things
>as much as possible.
>
>Few things:
>
>1) "Show all users that have an explicit allow/block" - what does this
>mean? Currently, only devices (MAC addresses) can have an explicit
>allow/block (Filters -> Devices). Do you mean these or something else?
>If you mean Filters->Devices entries, then the entries in the database
>are the static entries - i.e. it does not tell you who is currently
>sending traffic on the network.
>
>2) We currently do not allow any remote communication to postgres. Only
>communication possible is local. If you have compromised access to the
>box (root access), then all is lost anyways. But yes, we should add
>authentication especially if users intend to open up remote access.
>
>-Rajesh.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Perfigo SecureSmart and CleanMachines Discussion List
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alex Lanstein
>Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 6:02 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: postgres changes
>
>Sure, I wasn't aware that this is a proper forum for feature requests.
>As you can see from my prior posts, I definately would perfer using the
>vendor supplied API whenever possible. I am not doing any writes to the
>database, only reads.
>
>The functions I was looking to implement where:
>Show all users that have an explicit allow Show all users that have an
>explicit block Show all users in X role Pull up a history of user logins
>and outs.
>
>Also, I must say it's fairly ridiculous that the controlsmartdb is using
>any sort of authentication. It is not beyond any reasonable doubt that
>there will be a remote vulnerability that requires an account, but can
>spoof the source. Please add some sort of password to that account in
>one of the later releases!
>
>Keep up the good work.
>
>Regards,
>Alex Lanstein
>
>Rajesh Nair (rajnair) wrote:
>
>
>
>>Folks,
>>
>>I have to say this - please avoid modifying the DB or access to the DB.
>>There are some remote threats that Postgres is vulnerable to that might
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>affect you. You could affect the functioning of the DB and the perfigo
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>service negatively. And most importantly, TAC will not support you if
>>they know that access to DB or the DB itself have been modified in some
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>way.
>>
>>I had to recently work with a customer who had installed a Postgres
>>admin utility which broke the DB syncing and failover. And TAC was not
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>supportive at all of this. And to be fair to them, they have very good
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>reasons to take that approach. They were working with this customer
>>for quite a while before realizing (or before being told) that the
>>customer had tried to install a utility.
>>
>>That said, can you explain what is lacking in the API - please make
>>feature requests w.r.t. the API. We will slowly but surely add
>>additional APIs. In this specific case, are you looking for all MAC
>>addresses that belong to a particular role? Are you looking for Online
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>Users in the Temporary Role or Quarantine role? What is the specific
>>thing you are trying to do?
>>
>>-Rajesh.
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Perfigo SecureSmart and CleanMachines Discussion List
>>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Joyce, Todd N
>>Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 12:52 PM
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: Re: postgres changes
>>
>>ps -ae | grep post
>> 748 ? 00:00:00 postmaster
>> 750 ? 00:00:00 postmaster
>>
>>kill -1 748
>>
>>Todd Joyce
>>Network Services
>>Radford University - The Smart Choice
>>[log in to unmask]
>>(540) 831-7777
>>
>>Keep your boots and ChapStick and ice hotels.
>>Give me shorts and sandals and a thirty-blocker.
>>
>>Temperance Brennan - Monday Mourning
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Perfigo SecureSmart and CleanMachines Discussion List
>>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lanstein, Alex C
>>Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 12:33 PM
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: postgres changes
>>
>>Well, I've found the API to be inadequate for what I'm trying to do
>>(make a page where our help desk can see what users are blocked). So,
>>I'm going to query the database directly. I know I need to make the
>>permission changes in pg_hba.conf, and to do that I have to edit the
>>make-pg_hba_conf.pl script. I
>>
>>I did that, but I know I have to restart the perfigo service. Tom,
>>
>>
>>from this list, said he just did a /etc/init.d perfigo restart and his
>
>
>>changes took effect, but when I did that something didn't start up
>>properly and it was throwing license errors like mad. I didn't have a
>>chance to look into it, since I had just taken down the dorm's
>>abilities to login temporarily, so I had to restart it quickly. My
>>changes took effect once I rebooted, but I'd like to know just how to
>>restart the postgres service (the 'perfigo way'... /sbin/service
>>postgres restart borked it too) without rebooting. I set a fairly
>>unrestrictive set of mapping rules to the db and I'd like to lock it
>>down a little more with the ident stuff postgres does as well.
>>
>>Any thoughts?
>>
>>Thanks in advance,
>>
>>Alex Lanstein
>>
>>
>>
>>
|
