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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Konsole - a security vs. portability problem
From:       <uwe () uwix ! alt ! na>
Date:       1999-01-06 10:59:28
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On Wed, 6 Jan 1999, Lars Doelle wrote:

> In the moment, konsole offers a security hole that allows local users to
> hijack/monitor the (root) sessions. The regular method to protect
> against this, is to do a chmod/chown on one of the devices within the
> emulation. Doing so would require konsole to be run root/suid, which
> raises more severe problems then it solves. Because i strongly dislike
> root/suid programs for many reasons, I've digged out an ioctl for Linux
> which does as desired, basically for the price of the solution not being
> portable to other UNIXes, eventually.
> 
> Comments, anyone?

If it isn't protable it isn't a solution. :-(

There is a solution:

Let konsole run suid root.

In main() before you do anything else you pick a pty, chown you.users
it, chmod go-rw it. Immediately thereafter you give up root privileges
_completely and forever_!

You might think you have a problem this way on exit because you can't
chown root.root the pty. But that is not necessary!!!! All you must do
is chmod go+wr on exit. And that you _can_ do without root privileges!

This way you can do all the root stuff before you even touch KDE, Qt,
and X. Should be fairly safe.

Uwe

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Uwe Thiem                                        Tel: +264 - 061 - 244511
P.O.Box 30955                                    Fax: +264 - 061 - 244511
Windhoek                                         Email:   uwe@uwix.alt.na
Republic of Namibia                                           uwe@kde.org
                                                       http://www.kde.org
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         You can still escape from the GATES of hell: Use KDE!
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