Description of problem: Some desktop component has decided to display /var/log/audit partition as an icon on a normal user's desktop. /var/log/audit is root root 0750. Nobody but root should be able to see into that directory and it should not be on a desktop since there are specific utilities to access and process audit logs. Steps to Reproduce: 1. When installing a system, create a /var/log/audit partition 2. Boot system and login as normal user 3. Desktop icon is created for a system directory. Additional Info: Users that click on the icon will likely trip some security rules and be spotted as someone trying to access unauthorized system areas. We should remove this so they do not get themselves in trouble.
I'm not sure this is a bug; if the user created /var/log/audit as a separate partition it will get shown in the UI like any other partition that a) is not in a FHS2.3 location; and b) is mounted. We could avoid showing partitions that are not readable for normal users but I think if the user went through the trouble of creating a partition he probably wants to see it too. Reassigning to gnome-vfs2 since that is the component that decides what to show on your desktop. Adding myself as Cc for further discussion.
Thanks for moving this to the right component. :) It is a bug. Suppose an admin creates this partition to follow Red Hat security guidelines. The partition can only be accessed by root and there are restrictions via selinux policy on the directory and its files. There are audit rules to look for anyone that may try to access or tamper with the audit logs. Meanwhile some unsuspecting user is given a fresh desktop to use and they see this icon for /var/log/audit. They will not be able to access it, they will trigger watches that the security officer will notice, and they only clicked on it because it was on their desktop and they wondered what it was. We need to remove temptation and also not advertise that the audit system is in use. As for that standard quoted above, this should be added to it if no one has taken it to the standards group yet. Who would I need to talk to about getting this added to the standard? The audit logs are the storage place for all security relevant events and must be treated carefully.
Created attachment 228041 [details] proposed patch Steve, does this patch work for you? Alex: We should probably rethink this when we switch to gvfs...
I've built gnome-vfs2 with this patch; you can get i686 and .src rpms here http://people.freedesktop.org/~david/gnome-vfs2-ignore-var-log-audit/
Looks like an easy enough patch; should probably get this in F8.
Testing with the srpm shows that this fixes the problem. Thanks.
Building this fix into Rawhide: http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=198260