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On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 12:28:43AM +0000, Kerin Millar wrote |
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> On 10/02/2014 23:57, Walter Dnes wrote: |
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> > |
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> > What's the point, if you still have to run as root (or su or sudo) for |
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> > the emerge update process? |
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> |
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> It's the principle of least privilege. Is there any specific reason for |
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> portage to fork and exec rsync as root? Is rsync sandboxed? Should rsync |
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> have unfettered read/write access to all mounted filesystems? Can it be |
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> guaranteed that rsync hasn't been compromised? Can it be guaranteed that |
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> PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS will contain safe options at all times? |
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> |
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> The answer to all of these questions is "no". Basically, the combination |
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> of usersync and non-root ownership of PORTDIR hardens the process in a |
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> sensible way while conferring no disadvantage. |
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|
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If /usr/portage is owned by portage:portage, then wouldn't a user |
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(member of portage) be able to do mischief by tweaking ebuilds? E.g. |
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modify an ebuild to point to a tarball located on a usb stick, at |
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http://127.0.0.1/media/sdc1/my_tarball.tgz. This would allow a local |
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user to supply code that gets built and then installed in /usr/bin, or |
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/sbin, etc. |
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|
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-- |
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Walter Dnes <waltdnes@××××××××.org> |
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I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications |
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