Bug 2019

Summary: Printing to a smb printer stores printer passwd and username in plain text file.
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: jaras
Component: sambaAssignee: Trond Eivind Glomsrxd <teg>
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: high    
Version: 5.2Keywords: Security
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: i386   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 1999-04-06 14:42:52 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description jaras 1999-04-06 02:44:46 UTC 
/var/spool/lpd/lp/.config is world readable by any user.

[jaras@preston:lp]$ ls -asl .config
   1 -rw-r--r--   1 root     root           72 Mar 29 22:50
.config
[jaras@preston:lp]$
[jaras@preston:lp]$ id
uid=500(jaras) gid=500(jaras) groups=500(jaras)

This is not a huge issue, but still alot of systems use
similar passwords and what have you.

I did not want to go to the 'security' community first,
until you respond to this w/ a patch/fix and what not.

keep up the good work.

jay.
Comment 1 Bill Nottingham 1999-04-06 14:42:59 UTC 
It's always been this way; in fact, if you read the large warning
that appears in printtool:

"               - WARNING -

    The use of a remote SMB/Windows 95/NT printer
    may require a username and password for
    its server. These are stored unencrypted
    in a script locally, and must be passed on
    the command line to the smbclient program.

    In other words, it is possible for
    another person to learn of the username
    and password. It is therefore recommended
    that the username and password for the
    use of the printer to NOT BE the same as
    that for a user account on the local
    Linux box. That way, if this information
    is compromised, the only possible damage
    is unauthorized use of the printer.

    If there are file shares from the server,
    it would be best if they required a
    different password than that required for
    the use of the printer, for the same reason.

-
The file has to be world readable, or otherwise only root can print.

------- Additional Comments From   09/30/99 15:44 -------
One way round this problem would be to do what I do with a similar
script I use that requires passwords to be presented on the command
line: put the passwords in a separate file and use `cmd` to insert
them.

As an example, try something like the following shell script:

 Q> #!/bin/bash
 Q> printf 'For your reference, I am "%s"\n' \
 Q>        `grep "^\`id -un\`" /etc/passwd | cut -d : -f 5`

Try running it, and you will see that it happily displays the
specified field from the said user's password entry, but at no time
does the said field ever appear in any history file or any ps or top
command listing.

I'm no expert on samba by any means, but surely something along these
lines could be used ???