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You're reading from  Mastering FreeSWITCH

Product typeBook
Published inJul 2016
Reading LevelExpert
PublisherPackt
ISBN-139781784398880
Edition1st Edition
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Authors (8):
Darren Schreiber
Darren Schreiber
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Darren Schreiber

Darren Schreiber is the CEO and Co-founder of 2600 Hz. He began working heavily in open source voice with the FreeSWITCH project, where he engaged with Brian, Mike, and Anthony. His projects have since evolved into two enterprise VoIP platforms that allow a multitude of development of voice, SMS, and video applications to be delivered to customers.He has 15 years of voice and IT experience including developing multiple enterprise SaaS infrastructures for hosting and remotely managing IT, voice, and e-commerce services. He is a guest lecturer at major universities on VoIP technology and leads paid international VoIP trainings. As a serious telephony enthusiast since a young age, he has worked extensively with VoIP technologies. He graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a degree in Computer Science and Business Management.He is also a co-author of FreeSWITCH Cookbook, Packt Publishing.
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Dropping root privileges (file permissions)


The more direct way to run FreeSWITCH is to run it as "root". Being root, the all-powerful user, the Overlord of the server, a program running as root has no limits whatsoever: No limits on how much memory it can allocate, which network port it can listen to and send from, how many files it can open, which priority and nice level it can escalate, which file and directories it can read and write.

While obviously very convenient for a casual test installation (no integration problems: FreeSWITCH simply owns the machine and all its resources), many users refrain from it.

To limit the reach and damage that a FreeSWITCH process can do after going awry because of a bug (or a malicious exploitation of a bug), you had better run FreeSWITCH as a user with the minimum possible privileges. A "system" kind of user is the most logical choice: No password, no way to login, no affiliation to groups but to "daemon".

This is how it is already implemented by ready...

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Mastering FreeSWITCH
Published in: Jul 2016Publisher: PacktISBN-13: 9781784398880

Authors (8)

author image
Darren Schreiber

Darren Schreiber is the CEO and Co-founder of 2600 Hz. He began working heavily in open source voice with the FreeSWITCH project, where he engaged with Brian, Mike, and Anthony. His projects have since evolved into two enterprise VoIP platforms that allow a multitude of development of voice, SMS, and video applications to be delivered to customers.He has 15 years of voice and IT experience including developing multiple enterprise SaaS infrastructures for hosting and remotely managing IT, voice, and e-commerce services. He is a guest lecturer at major universities on VoIP technology and leads paid international VoIP trainings. As a serious telephony enthusiast since a young age, he has worked extensively with VoIP technologies. He graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a degree in Computer Science and Business Management.He is also a co-author of FreeSWITCH Cookbook, Packt Publishing.
Read more about Darren Schreiber