Re: Wiping out setuid programs

From: Thamer Al-Herbish (shadowsat_private)
Date: Wed Jan 06 1999 - 23:53:01 PST

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    On Wed, 6 Jan 1999, D. J. Bernstein wrote:
    
    > In every case the file access could be moved to a non-setuid daemon that
    > accepts UNIX-domain connections from unprivileged user programs. This
    > would wipe out a huge number of local security holes.
    
    I really think this is overrated. All a client-server model would do
    is eliminate process attribute inheritance. It would prevent
    environment variables from being inherited, file descriptors etc.
    
    Sure, these do cause security holes, but let's not forget the
    plethora of other holes caused by buffer overruns, race conditions
    et al. which occur regardless of attribute inheritance.
    
    >    http://pobox.com/~djb/docs/secureipc.html
    
    Add SCM_CREDS on FreeBSD and BSD/OS to the list.
    
    Here's your problem, you already have:
    
    Linux : SO_PEERCRED
    FreeBSD: SCM_CREDS
    BSD/OS: SCM_CREDS (different from FreeBSD)
    NetBSD: LOCAL_CREDS
    Solaris: Doors
    
    Too many, making life very unportable. Is there a mention of any
    of these in any standard?
    
    Another way, that Thomas Ptacek had mentioned this a while back on
    comp.security.unix, includes passing a file descriptor that is only
    readable by its owner (SCM_RIGHTS). An fstat() will give you the
    owner of the file, and thus you'd know the peer's effective user ID.
    
    Here's another question, apart from Bernstein's paper, has anyone
    written formal papers on this technique? I'm looking to reference
    some papers for some writing.
    
    --
    Thamer Al-Herbish                     PGP public key:
    shadowsat_private                 http://www.whitefang.com/pgpkey.txt
    [ Maintainer of the Raw IP Networking FAQ http://www.whitefang.com/rin/ ]
    



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