Re: Potential security problem with mtr

From: LaMont Jones (lamontat_private)
Date: Fri Mar 03 2000 - 12:12:24 PST

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    > Since the saved uid survives across fork() and exec(), any buffer
    > overrun or similar bug in mtr is just as bad as if mtr had never done
    > the seteuid() at all.
    
    Saved-uid should get dropped on exec(), shouldn't it?
    
    > The mtr code uses setuid() on HPUX, which according to the comments in
    > the mtr code doesn't have the seteuid() call. It does seteuid() on all
    > other systems though. It is unclear why the mtr authors favoured
    > seteuid() before setuid() on platforms that have it.
    
    Just FYI, HP-UX has setresuid() which allows you to change any
    of the 3.  Hence, seteuid() could be written (since days long
    gone by) as 'setresuid(-1,uid,-1)'.  Now, as to _why_ they chose
    to add a setregid() system call, instead of making it a libc stub
    to setresgid(), I still don't understand...
    
    lamont
    



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