[Pkg-net-snmp-devel] Bug#520724: Speed interface is 0

[Stephen Hemminger]

On Sun, 12 Sep 2010 18:15:44 +0200
Frédéric MASSOT <frederic at juliana-multimedia.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> It's strange, when we remove the snmp group (-g snmp remplace by -g 
> root), the speed interfaces is correct for about 30 seconds after the 
> start of snmpd and then it goes to 0.
> 
> I use snmpd 5.4.3~dfsg-1 and kernel 2.6.35.4.
> 
> Regards.
> 
> 
> 

The following change is headed for a future Linux kernel.
Probably not until 2.6.37 because of the current merge window.

-- 
commit 0fdc100bdc4b7ab61ed632962c76dfe539047296
Author: stephen hemminger <shemminger at vyatta.com>
Date:   Mon Aug 23 10:24:18 2010 +0000

    ethtool: allow non-netadmin to query settings
    
    The SNMP daemon uses ethtool to determine the speed of
    network interfaces. This fails on Debian (and probably elsewhere)
    because for security SNMP daemon runs as non-root user (snmp).
    
    Note: A similar patch was rejected previously because of a concern about
    the possibility that on some hardware querying the ethtool settings
    requires access to the PHY and could slow the machine down.  But the
    security risk of requiring SNMP daemon (and related services)
    to run as root far out weighs the risk of denial-of-service.
    
    Signed-off-by: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger at vyatta.com>
    Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem at davemloft.net>