What is the most secure way to allow a user read access to a log file?

Question

My application requires read access to /var/log/messages, which belongs to user and group root. What is the minimal exposure level required on /var/log/messages so my application can read it?

Presently, my plan is to change the group ownership of /var/log/messages to a new group, and add root and my application user to it, but this would also give the application write privileges to /var/log/messages.

OS: Centos 5.5

Answer 1

No need to add root to the group as it will have access via the user privs anyways, just give group read to what ever group you decide. Remember to make the changes with logrotate as well or the group changes will get wiped nightly.

Answer 2

Your plan is acceptable and in the "traditional" Unix permissions scheme is the best way to go.
Another option is to have syslog divert the messages of interest to another file (which avoids giving the app user access to anything sensitive that may be in /var/log/messages).

If you don't feel like being bound by the traditional permissions scheme of User/Group/Other you can also use POSIX ACLs (other, possibly better howtos/info available via Google) to give your app user read-only access to /var/log/messages -- this is a bit more fine-grained and doesn't risk accidentally putting someone else in the application's group and giving them access to things they shouldn't be able to see.

Answer 3

You can use ACL for this. It allows you to set specific additional access rules for specific users and files.