abarbarian Posted September 25, 2023 Share Posted September 25, 2023 Did an update to the system today. Nothing major just a small update. Programs being updated looked pretty normal, :: Retrieving packages... systemd-libs-254... 1084.7 KiB 437 KiB/s 00:02 [----------------------] 100% shadow-4.14.0-4-... 1173.1 KiB 424 KiB/s 00:03 [----------------------] 100% kbd-2.6.3-1-x86_64 1277.5 KiB 454 KiB/s 00:03 [----------------------] 100% gettext-0.22.2-1... 1884.4 KiB 481 KiB/s 00:04 [----------------------] 100% rsync-3.2.7-6-x86_64 335.8 KiB 309 KiB/s 00:01 [----------------------] 100% mpg123-1.32.1-1-... 444.1 KiB 344 KiB/s 00:01 [----------------------] 100% nvidia-settings-... 766.2 KiB 426 KiB/s 00:02 [----------------------] 100% lib32-glibc-2.38... 3.4 MiB 603 KiB/s 00:06 [----------------------] 100% inetutils-2.4-2-... 309.6 KiB 315 KiB/s 00:01 [----------------------] 100% libxnvctrl-535.1... 76.4 KiB 108 KiB/s 00:01 [----------------------] 100% lib32-mpg123-1.3... 278.2 KiB 267 KiB/s 00:01 [----------------------] 100% webp-pixbuf-load... 9.8 KiB 14.4 KiB/s 00:01 [----------------------] 100% systemd-sysvcomp... 6.0 KiB 9.19 KiB/s 00:01 [----------------------] 100% systemd-254.4-2-... 7.7 MiB 523 KiB/s 00:15 [----------------------] 100% glibc-2.38-4-x86_64 9.8 MiB 528 KiB/s 00:19 [----------------------] 100% nvidia-dkms-535.... 42.9 MiB 532 KiB/s 01:23 [----------------------] 100% nvidia-utils-535... 261.7 MiB 3.06 MiB/s 01:26 [----------------------] 100% lib32-nvidia-uti... 46.2 MiB 550 KiB/s 01:26 [----------------------] 100% Total (18/18) 379.2 MiB 4.41 MiB/s 01:26 [----------------------] 100% That is untill I saw, Creating group '_talkd' with GID 961. Creating user '_talkd' (User for legacy talkd server) with UID 961 and GID 961. I do have a "talk.exe" and "talkd.exe" in "/usr/sbin" . However pacman is of no help even though the program is installed it seems there is no package for it. Quote Put brain in gear before pressing enter11:03:41-->Mon Sep 25-->~ -->sudo pacman -Qi talkd error: package 'talkd' was not found Put brain in gear before pressing enter11:03:54-->Mon Sep 25-->~ -->sudo pacman -Qi talk error: package 'talk' was not found Put brain in gear before pressing enter11:04:09-->Mon Sep 25-->~ -->sudo pacman -Qs talk local/cowsay 3.04-4 Configurable talking cow (and a few other creatures) Put brain in gear before pressing enter11:05:09-->Mon Sep 25-->~ -->sudo pacman -Qs talkd Put brain in gear before pressing enter11:05:24-->Mon Sep 25-->~ -->sudo pacman -Si talk error: package 'talk' was not found Put brain in gear before pressing enter11:05:53-->Mon Sep 25-->~ -->sudo pacman -Si talkd error: package 'talkd' was not found Put brain in gear before pressing enter11:06:06-->Mon Sep 25-->~ -->sudo pacman -F talkd warning: database file for 'core' does not exist (use '-Fy' to download) warning: database file for 'extra' does not exist (use '-Fy' to download) warning: database file for 'multilib' does not exist (use '-Fy' to download) Put brain in gear before pressing enter11:06:31-->Mon Sep 25-->~ -->sudo pacman -F talk warning: database file for 'core' does not exist (use '-Fy' to download) warning: database file for 'extra' does not exist (use '-Fy' to download) warning: database file for 'multilib' does not exist (use '-Fy' to download) Searching the net did not help me but I came across this which was asking for help with the "talk" program which was a tad worrying, Quote Your use case really confuses me. in.ntalkd comes from another era, where eavesdropping was less common, it's all but obsolete now. You will be transmitting confidential information over an unsecured channel. Having said that, bear in mind that inetd services are usually protected by a system layer called TCP Wrappers. in.ntalkd is usually binary linked to libwrap. man hosts_access should help you solve your problem. Like others, I really don't recommend your approach. So what created the group and user and why ?????? Thought I would ask here before asking at the Arch forums. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted September 25, 2023 Share Posted September 25, 2023 https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Talkd_and_the_talk_command Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted September 25, 2023 Share Posted September 25, 2023 From above The "talk" command allows you to talk to other users on the same system. This was historically useful on UNIX systems, before the popularization of IRC and more recent instant messaging software. It can still be useful for some cases e.g. when multiple users log in via SSH to the same system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted September 25, 2023 Share Posted September 25, 2023 A command/software older than Linux itself (I used to use it back in the day is the only reason that I was familiar with it). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted September 25, 2023 Author Share Posted September 25, 2023 7 hours ago, securitybreach said: A command/software older than Linux itself (I used to use it back in the day is the only reason that I was familiar with it). Ha I missed the Arch Wiki article. So why has an update created a user and group on my pc for some ancient program ??????????????????? An who do they thank I want to talk to on my single user system. I know I am slightly barking but I ain't started talking to myself regularly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted September 25, 2023 Share Posted September 25, 2023 It was probably pulled as a dependency and creating/group is kind of normal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted September 25, 2023 Share Posted September 25, 2023 I installed Garuda last night and it created a talkd group when I did the initial system updates. Like I would ever need it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted September 25, 2023 Share Posted September 25, 2023 So the package inetutils provides talk and talkd but oddly enough, I have it installed but do not have those groups. I do have /usr/bin/talk and /usr/bin/talkd though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted September 26, 2023 Author Share Posted September 26, 2023 11 hours ago, securitybreach said: So the package inetutils provides talk and talkd but oddly enough, I have it installed but do not have those groups. So why when you are running Arch the same as me do you not have the user and groups for talk/d ?? Could it be because I am running with a zen kernel ??? Talk and talkd show up in the inetutils pakage as being in /usr/bin but no mention of them being in /usr/sbin. Quote usr/bin/talk usr/bin/talkd usr/bin/telnet usr/bin/telnetd usr/lib/ usr/lib/systemd/ usr/lib/systemd/system/ usr/lib/systemd/system/ftpd.service usr/lib/systemd/system/rlogin.socket usr/lib/systemd/system/rlogin@.service usr/lib/systemd/system/rsh.socket usr/lib/systemd/system/rsh@.service usr/lib/systemd/system/talk.service usr/lib/systemd/system/talk.socket An awful lot of programs seem to require inetutils, 41 of them. An the few I checked on have no mention of talk/d at all. https://archlinux.org/packages/core/x86_64/inetutils/ Also doing a check for packages there is no talk or talkd package.Searching for talkd throws up no results at all. Whilst searching for talk throws up, https://archlinux.org/packages/?sort=&q=talk&maintainer=&flagged= None of the 11 programs require inetutils either as a dependency or as an optional. Of the few I checked there is no mention of talk or talkd. So now I have some program creating users and groups for a program that is not to be found anywhere in the arch packages data base. No mention of who maintains it or if it has been cleared for security reasons. Aslo it may pose a security threat albeit a very slim chance of being a threat. Quote Later versions of talk blocked flash attempts and alerted the user that one had taken place. Later it became clear that, by sending different terminal commands, it is even possible to have the user execute commands. As it has proven impossible to fix all programs that output untrusted data to the terminal, modern terminal emulators have been rewritten to block this attack, though some may still be vulnerable. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Talk_(software) Am I worried ? Not really as there is little I can do about it. I do wonder why as they have such little use today they are still included in modern programs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted September 26, 2023 Share Posted September 26, 2023 I also have the zen kernel but I think you are overthinking it, IBM maintains the talkd application so there shouldnt be any security issue: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/aix/7.2?topic=t-talk-command Quote I do wonder why as they have such little use today they are still included in modern programs. Talk is used frequently in business settings with lots of users, same as things like telnet and ftp, etc. Most users do not use those anymore but they are used in the backend for a lot of other things. That said about the groups, I was working on cleaning up groups at one time so maybe I removed it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted September 27, 2023 Author Share Posted September 27, 2023 22 hours ago, securitybreach said: but I think you are overthinking it Underthinking it is probably a better description. More like a blind man wandering around a swamp in the everglades. I just spotted the anomaly and followed sparse breadcrumbs of information. I guess that is one way of learning, can be a bit confusing though. Thanks for the extra information. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted September 27, 2023 Share Posted September 27, 2023 52 minutes ago, abarbarian said: Thanks for the extra information. No problem chief, glad to help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crp Posted October 2, 2023 Share Posted October 2, 2023 wow, talk. next will be a package update for chat. (chat was much better than talk.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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