Security of Personal File Sharing

[chinarut]

In the Sharing pane of my System Preferences, I noticed that "Personal File Sharing" had been toggled on without my knowledge. :-o

First, is anyone clear about exactly what is shared by default? If I click on Network->NameOfMyMac it shows the entire drive! I assume this is not what everyone else sees.

After some research, it appears /Users/*/Shared directories are the ones shared with /Users/*/Shared/Dropbox being writable as far as I know.

Second, is there a log of when the Personal File Sharing service was turned on and perhaps even includes the user who turned it on?

/Library/Log/AppleFileService/AppleFileServiceError.log

is not too helpful outside of reporting when the service was turned off (which is not really an "error" per se - I digress!)

Thanks for helping me keep my system secure and tidy!

 

[g/re/p]

As far as i know, you either have to have a user account
on the machine you are connecting to, or know the user
name and password of someone who does.

As far as how personal file sharing got turned on in the
first place - does anyone else have access to the computer?

When personal file sharing is turned on, var/log/system.log
creates an entry similar to this one:

Dec 24 07:09:34 client3 configd[39]: executing /usr/sbin/AppleFileServer

 

[chinarut]

Dec 24 07:09:34 client3 configd[39]: executing /usr/sbin/AppleFileServer

hey thanks - i just tried this myself and you're right - what's going on is it probably got turned on more than 10 days ago (this as far back as my system.log's got rotated)

Any chance you can verify what parts of your HD gets shared when u have it enabled?

I don't have access to an external machine right now.

 

[g/re/p]

When i use personal file sharing to connect from my powerbook to my powermac, i am able to select any area of the computer my password
will give me access to.

For example, i can mount the entire HDD, or just my home folder.