Linux Community Magazine

Tips for Securely Using Temporary Files in Linux Scripts
Dec 6, 2010, 23 :02 UTC (0 Talkback[s]) (718 reads)
(Other stories by Jamie Adams)

[ Thanks to Jamie Adams for this link. ]

"Over the years, I've written hundreds, if not thousands, of shell scripts. With the ease at which you can redirect input and output within a shell script, many sysadmins store data in temporary files for processing purposes. In some situations scripts become essential to the day-to-day operations of a system and as such, may end up running on a regular basis via crontab ? never to be looked at again.

"Unfortunately, some sysadmins who write scripts might store sensitive data in temporary files, don't restrict access to temporary files, and might forget to remove them from the system when they are no longer needed. In many cases, they use them when it isn't even necessary. The beauty of Linux and UNIX is that there are hundreds of ways to accomplish the same task. I will keep my Bash examples simple so you can focus on grasping the general concepts."

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