Re: /proc filesystem allows bypassing directory permissions on Linux

[Pavel Machek <pavel () ucw cz>]

Hi!

> > pavel@toy:/tmp$ uname -a
> > Linux toy.ucw.cz 2.6.32-rc3 #21 Mon Oct 19 07:32:02 CEST 2009 armv5tel GNU/Linux
> > pavel@toy:/tmp mkdir my_priv; cd my_priv
>
> Attacker opens my_priv and waits.
...
> > pavel@toy:/tmp/my_priv$ cat unwritable_file 
> > this file should never be writable
>
> Attacker uses openat() to open and modify the "private" file.
>
> > pavel@toy:/tmp/my_priv$ cat unwritable_file 
> > got you
> > # Security problem here
> >
> > Unexpected? Well, yes, to me anyway. Linux specific? Yes, I think so.
>
> Not quite, as described above: there's a permissions race which
> allowed the attacker to open the my_priv directory. Once you
> have an fd on a directory it's possible to open any file inside
> without a full-path permissions check. If you created the directory
> using `mkdir -m 0700` (eliminating the race) then you should be safe.

Ok, if linux honors O_SEARCH on directories, then you found problem
with  my example. Congratulations, you were the first one :-).

I could present more complex example, pavel passing guest read-only
file descriptor over unix socket. At that point, you would not be able
to play with openat. OTOH, that example would be complex & ugly :-(.
                                                                        Pavel
-- 
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