Messages in this thread | | | From | Kyle Moffett <> | Subject | Re: R: Linux kernel source archive vulnerable | Date | Tue, 12 Sep 2006 01:06:37 -0400 |
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On Sep 11, 2006, at 14:29:58, Jon Lewis wrote: > On Fri, 8 Sep 2006, Perego Paolo Franco wrote: > >> Anyway just few considerations: >> 2) a good sysadmin is aware that /usr/src is NOT supposed to be >> world writable > > For some reason (bug in how they're being checked out of git, I > assume), the latest kernel source tar files have all files and > directories world writable. This is not how it's been in the past > and is not how it should be.
-ENOBUG
Please see these threads and quit bringing up this topic like crazy: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=113304241100330&w=2 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=114635639325551&w=2
To quote: > Going over old ground again, any administrator a) compiling the > kernel as root or b) relying on GNU tar to make > _security_policy_decisions_ is completely insane. > > The only "trick" here is tar's decision not to apply umask, or root > uid/gid, to files in a tar when extracted as root. This might make > sense for tars that you created and want to extract again (say > restoring a backup), but it certainly NEVER makes sense for files > downloaded off the Internet.
So if you must cause a senseless hubbub on securityfocus.com, please don't spill it over onto LKML. This sort of thing is at _worst_ a bug in GNU tar that it's behavior is different when root. I run a linux system with SELinux where user 0 is no different than any other user and has no special permissions at all, and this kind of stupidity bites me a lot. My user 0 is "kyle" when I want to chown files I switch to the "sysadm" role, or if I absolutely need to override security policy for some reason I jump through hoops to get to the "root" role. In neither of those cases do I care what UID I am.
So either deal insecure permissions when you can't be bothered to use GNU tar securely (easy), don't compile your kernel as root (easier) or fix GNU tar not to assume UID 0 is God in the first place.
Cheers, Kyle Moffett - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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