Vulnerability in Samba on RedHat, Caldera and PHT TurboLinux

From: Andrew Tridgell (tridgeat_private)
Date: Wed Nov 18 1998 - 23:20:18 PST

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    The Samba team has discovered two security vulnerabilities in the
    samba-1.9.18 RPMs as distributed by RedHat, Caldera and TurboLinux.
    As far as we know no other distributions of Samba are affected.
    
    summary:
    ========
    
    The first problem is the installation permissions of the wsmbconf
    binary. The RPM installs wsmbconf as a setgid binary owned by group
    root and executable by all users.
    
    The wsmbconf program was a prototype application and was never meant to
    make its way into a Samba release. It was not designed to be setgid
    and is vulnerable to attack by local users when installed setgid.
    
    The second problem is that the spec file creates a world writeable
    spool area /var/spool/samba but does not set the t bit. The t bit
    should be set on Samba spool directories.
    
    impact:
    =======
    
    1) non-privileged users can use wsmbconf to gain read/write access to
    any file which is accessible to the root group.
    
    2) non-privileged users can alter the content of documents being
    printed by other users. If an interpreter such as ghostscript is used
    to process print files then the insertion of exploit code into print
    files may allow an attacker to exploit vulnerabilities in the
    interpreter to gain access to files owned by users submitting print
    jobs.
    
    vulnerable systems:
    ===================
    
    The wsmbconf vulnerability is known to affect the binary versions of
    Samba-1.9.18 distributed with RedHat Linux, Caldera OpenLinux and PHT
    TurboLinux.
    
    The /var/spool/samba vulnerability is known to affect all binary
    versions of Samba distributed with RedHat from version 4.0 up to
    5.2. It is believed to also affect a wide range of Caldera and
    TurboLinux versions but specifics are not available at this time.
    
    Systems on which Samba has been built from the distributed source code
    (the .tar.gz files) are not vulnerable. Both vulnerabilities are
    present only in the packaging files used for particular binary
    distributions.
    
    You can tell if your system is vulnerable by looking for a file called
    /usr/sbin/wsmbconf. If you have that file then you have a vulnerable
    installation.
    
    workaround:
    ===========
    
    1) All systems on which /usr/sbin/wsmbconf is installed should
    immediately remove that file:
    
                rm -f /usr/sbin/wsmbconf
    
    removing that file will not in any way adversely affect your Samba
    installation as the file is not actually part of Samba 1.9.18. It
    was included in the distribution inadvertently.
    
    2) All systems which have a /var/spool/samba directory should ensure
    that the t bit is set on that directory:
    
        chmod +t /var/spool/samba
    
    fix:
    ====
    
    1) The cause of the first problem is the following line in the spec
    file used to compile Samba 1.9.18p10 on RedHat and Caldera systems:
    
       %attr(2755,root,root) /usr/sbin/wsmbconf
    
    The 2755 permissions are incorrect. The correct action is to remove
    wsmbconf completely from the spec file.
    
    
    2) The cause of the second problem is the following line in the spec
    file used to compile Samba 1.9.18p10 on RedHat and Caldera systems:
    
       %attr(777,root,root) %dir /var/spool/samba
    
    the line should be changed to read:
    
       %attr(1777,root,root) %dir /var/spool/samba
    
    
    updated packages:
    ================
    
    RedHat and Caldera have released new RPMs on their ftp sites. We expect
    PHT to release new RPMs shortly.
    
    The URLs I have been given are:
    
    Caldera
            ftp.caldera.com:/pub/OpenLinux/updates/1.3/007
    
    Redhat
            Red Hat Linux 4.2
                alpha ftp://updates.redhat.com/4.2/alpha/samba-1.9.18p10-0.alpha.rpm
                i386  ftp://updates.redhat.com/4.2/i386/samba-1.9.18p10-0.i386.rpm
                sparc ftp://updates.redhat.com/4.2/sparc/samba-1.9.18p10-0.sparc.rpm
            Red Hat Linux 5.0, 5.1 and 5.2:
                alpha ftp://updates.redhat.com/5.2/alpha/samba-1.9.18p10-5.alpha.rpm
                i386  ftp://updates.redhat.com/5.2/i386/samba-1.9.18p10-5.i386.rpm
                sparc ftp://updates.redhat.com/5.2/sparc/samba-1.9.18p10-5.sparc.rpm
    
    additional:
    ===========
    
    wsmbconf was included inadvertently in the RedHat spec file as
    distributed in Samba 1.9.18 by a Samba Team member. RedHat, Caldera
    and PHT are not responsible for this vulnerability, even though only
    those systems are affected. The Samba Team apologises to RedHat,
    Caldera and PHT users for these mistakes.
    
    These vulnerabilities were discovered during routine inspection of the
    spec files. We are not aware of anyone actively exploiting these
    vulnerabilities, although exploits are certainly possible.
    
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