3 ms·

BEGIN { $API = new Backend($ENV{credentials}); delete $ENV{credentials}; }; Filesystem permissions do not make it possible for a program to

by geocar 12y ago

BEGIN { $API = new Backend($ENV{credentials}); delete $ENV{credentials}; }; Filesystem permissions do not make it possible for a program to internally partition access to those credentials unless you (a) start it as root, or (b) delete the credentials file after reading it.

icebraining 12y ago
A user process can start subprocesses under different users, without access permissions to the files owned by parent. The most obvious way to do so is to use sudo.
- geocar 12y ago
  Using a setuid helper (even if it's called sudo) is still starting a program as root.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Not necessarily; sudo on Fedora has CAP_SETUID instead of the setuid bit, so it doesn't actually run as root. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/RemoveSETUID http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/RemoveSETUID
    - ptx 12y ago
      But CAP_SETUID, unless I'm confusing it with something else, can be used to set the UID to 0 and thereby gain all the same privileges as if the program had been started as root, can't it? Presumably it has some advantage that I'm not getting – does it have to be combined with e.g. SELinux to be useful?