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Date:      Tue, 16 Mar 1999 04:36:44 -0800
From:      Don Lewis <Don.Lewis@tsc.tdk.com>
To:        Robert Watson <robert+freebsd@cyrus.watson.org>, Wilfredo Sanchez <wsanchez@apple.com>
Cc:        Thomas Valentino Crimi <tcrimi+@andrew.cmu.edu>, freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: ACL's
Message-ID:  <199903161236.EAA25960@salsa.gv.tsc.tdk.com>
In-Reply-To: Robert Watson <robert@cyrus.watson.org> "Re: ACL's" (Mar 14,  6:02pm)

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On Mar 14,  6:02pm, Robert Watson wrote:
} Subject: Re: ACL's
} On Sun, 14 Mar 1999, Wilfredo Sanchez wrote:

} >   Is there any reason (other than "it always has been so") why users  
} > should be allowed to create hard links to files they don't own?
}
} This variation on the restriction theme seems quite promising.  Off hand,
} I don't know of any linking behavior in the base system that relies on
} renaming files owned by other users (except rename, and that is a separate
} syscall).  Most of the database applications people are mentioning
} (including news) probably remain within the scope of a single user, I
} would guess?  And a number of the attacks of interest are related to
} setuid or other files owned by different users (specifically interesting
} ones). It seems to address well my concern that users cannot revoke access
} to a file.  Now they can be sure that rename() or chmod() followed by
} revoke() to address data files, and simply unlink to dispose of a setuid
} file.  Setuid is presumably only of interest on open() so continued access
} to an already instantied setuid session is probably fine.
} 
} Rename could be induced to look like a hard link by causing a system
} crash/power failure at an appropriate point in the rename procedure, I
} would guess.  But that's probably not in the scope of the security
} protections we're addressing at this point.  :-)

Rename would only be a concern in cases where one of the links to
the file in question was located in a directory that was writeable
by the user attempting to do the rename.  I suspect that most users
won't install their setuid executables in directories that someone
else has write permission on.  Plain files might also be of concern
(in directories like /tmp), but in most cases the directory will have
the sticky bit, preventing rename from working.



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