[8787] in bugtraq
Re: Why you should avoid world-writable directories
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Darren Reed)
Wed Dec 23 14:29:58 1998
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1998 09:28:35 +1100
Reply-To: Bugtraq List <BUGTRAQ@NETSPACE.ORG>
From: Darren Reed <avalon@COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU>
To: BUGTRAQ@NETSPACE.ORG
In-Reply-To: <367F7DAB.FEDF77A7@algroup.co.uk> from "Ben Laurie" at Dec 22,
98 11:08:27 am
In some mail from Ben Laurie, sie said:
>
> D. J. Bernstein wrote:
> > Certainly setuid programs require a great deal of care. They've been
> > involved in many security disasters, though far fewer than (for example)
> > world-writable directories. The security community would love to see
> > another portable IPC mechanism offering guaranteed user identification.
> > (I suggest that kernels add a getpeeruid() system call, showing the real
> > uid that called connect(), for UNIX-domain sockets and for loopback TCP
> > sockets.) However, while we're waiting, we need a few setuid programs.
>
> What's wrong with the LOCAL_CREDS option on UNIX domain sockets?
In a way, that is exactly the type of thing he is referring to, BUT,
LOCAL_CREDS must be supplied to be received as opposed to just "looked up"
with getpeeruid() (my understanding anyway).
Darren
