prof_attr(4) File Formats prof_attr(4)NAMEprof_attr - profile description database
SYNOPSIS
/etc/security/prof_attr
DESCRIPTION
/etc/security/prof_attr is a local source for execution profile names,
descriptions, and other attributes of execution profiles. The prof_attr
file can be used with other profile sources, including the prof_attr
NIS map and NIS+ table. Programs use the getprofattr(3SECDB) routines
to gain access to this information.
The search order for multiple prof_attr sources is specified in the
/etc/nsswitch.conf file, as described in the nsswitch.conf(4) man page.
An execution profile is a mechanism used to bundle together the com‐
mands and authorizations needed to perform a specific function. An exe‐
cution profile can also contain other execution profiles. Each entry in
the prof_attr database consists of one line of text containing five
fields separated by colons (:). Line continuations using the backslash
(\) character are permitted. The format of each entry is:
profname:res1:res2:desc:attr
profname The name of the profile. Profile names are case-sensitive.
res1 Reserved for future use.
res2 Reserved for future use.
desc A long description. This field should explain the purpose
of the profile, including what type of user would be inter‐
ested in using it. The long description should be suitable
for displaying in the help text of an application.
attr An optional list of semicolon-separated (;) key-value pairs
that describe the security attributes to apply to the
object upon execution. Zero or more keys can be specified.
There are four valid keys: help, profiles, auths, and
privs.
help is assigned the name of a file ending in .htm or
.html.
auths specifies a comma-separated list of authorization
names chosen from those names defined in the auth_attr(4)
database. Authorization names can be specified using the
asterisk (*) character as a wildcard. For example,
solaris.printer.* would mean all of Sun's authorizations
for printing.
profiles specifies a comma-separated list of profile names
chosen from those names defined in the prof_attr database.
privs specifies a comma-separated list of privileges names
chosen from those names defined in the priv_names(4) data‐
base. These privileges can then be used for executing com‐
mands with pfexec(1).
EXAMPLES
Example 1 Allowing Execution of All Commands
The following entry allows the user to execute all commands:
All:::Use this profile to give a :help=All.html
Example 2 Consulting the Local prof_attr File First
With the following nsswitch.conf entry, the local prof_attr file is
consulted before the NIS+ table:
prof_attr: files nisplus
FILES
/etc/nsswitch.conf
/etc/security/prof_attr
NOTES
When deciding which authorization source to use (see DESCRIPTION), keep
in mind that NIS+ provides stronger authentication than NIS.
The root user is usually defined in local databases because root needs
to be able to log in and do system maintenance in single-user mode and
at other times when the network name service databases are not avail‐
able. So that the profile definitions for root can be located at such
times, root's profiles should be defined in the local prof_attr file,
and the order shown in the example nsswitch.conf(4) file entry under
EXAMPLES is highly recommended.
Because the list of legal keys is likely to expand, any code that
parses this database must be written to ignore unknown key-value pairs
without error. When any new keywords are created, the names should be
prefixed with a unique string, such as the company's stock symbol, to
avoid potential naming conflicts.
Each application has its own requirements for whether the help value
must be a relative pathname ending with a filename or the name of a
file. The only known requirement is for the name of a file.
The following characters are used in describing the database format and
must be escaped with a backslash if used as data: colon (:), semicolon
(;), equals (=), and backslash (\).
SEE ALSOauths(1), pfexec(1), profiles(1), getauthattr(3SECDB), getpro‐
fattr(3SECDB), getuserattr(3SECDB), auth_attr(4), exec_attr(4),
priv_names(4), user_attr(4)SunOS 5.10 3 Apr 2008 prof_attr(4)
