Bug 995854

Summary: gnuplot: Make gnuplot's NOCWDRC (not to read the content of .gnuplot from CWD at the startup) default
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Jan Lieskovsky <jlieskov>
Component: gnuplotAssignee: Frantisek Kluknavsky <fkluknav>
Status: CLOSED WORKSFORME QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: unspecified Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 18CC: fkluknav, orion, pertusus, pschiffe
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: Unspecified   
OS: Unspecified   
URL: http://www.gnuplotting.org/configuration/
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: 995852
: 995855 (view as bug list) Environment:
Last Closed: 2013-08-30 13:35:24 UTC Type: Bug
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Bug Depends On: 995851, 995852    
Bug Blocks: 995855, 995856    

Description Jan Lieskovsky 2013-08-11 14:32:13 UTC
+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #995852 +++

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #995851 +++

Description of problem:
As written in:
  http://www.gnuplotting.org/configuration/

or in gnuplot's startup help:

gnuplot> help startup
 When `gnuplot` is run, it looks for an initialization file to load.
 This file is called `.gnuplot` on Unix and AmigaOS systems, and
 `GNUPLOT.INI` on other systems.  If this file is not found in the
 current directory, the program will look for it in the HOME directory
 (under AmigaOS, MS-DOS, Windows and OS/2, the
 environment variable `GNUPLOT` should contain the name of this
 directory; on Windows NT, it will use `USERPROFILE` if GNUPLOT isn't
 defined).  Note: if NOCWDRC is defined during the installation,
 `gnuplot` will not read from the current directory.

 If the initialization file is found, `gnuplot` executes the commands in it.
 These may be any legal `gnuplot` commands, but typically they are limited to
 setting the terminal and defining frequently-used functions or variables.

when 'NOCWDRC' is not defined in the moment of gnuplot's startup, gnuplot tries to load content of .gnuplot file from current working directory. Since when run from untrusted directory, this might be dangerous, that feature (loading of .gnuplot content from CWD) should be disabled in the default configuration (=> 'NOCWDRC' option should be used).


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
gnuplot/4.6.1/4.fc18

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Define some gnuplot commands (even to run some system ones) into .gnuplot file in CWD
2. Run gnuplot


Actual results:
Commands from .gnuplot in CWD are executed by gnuplot startup.

Expected results:
Commands aren't executed.

Additional info:
This is not a security flaw, since above behaviour is documented in gnuplot startup help and/or in upstream documentation.

Anyway, the more secure (not to load .gnuplot from CWD at startup) behaviour should be used.

Comment 1 Frantisek Kluknavsky 2013-08-30 13:35:24 UTC
It does not seem to affect recent Fedoras, closing as WORKSFORME.