Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Fri, 25 Jan 2019 09:50:51 +0000
From:      Edward Napierala <trasz@freebsd.org>
To:        Devin Teske <dteske@freebsd.org>
Cc:        rgrimes@freebsd.org, src-committers <src-committers@freebsd.org>, svn-src-all@freebsd.org, svn-src-head@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: svn commit: r343440 - head/bin/sh
Message-ID:  <20190125095051.GA26744@v2>
In-Reply-To: <6DD219EC-C898-499E-BF58-AB653A7114DB@FreeBSD.org>
References:  <201901251709.x0PH9Rc4094379@repo.freebsd.org> <201901251957.x0PJvdTL089917@pdx.rh.CN85.dnsmgr.net> <CAFLM3-oSafSxcWSJPEXQ8szLEq5N593fr=sEsup6A2%2BP_VXrgQ@mail.gmail.com> <D7EEA6BA-EAA6-4A84-A7C4-904999B0E581@FreeBSD.org> <20190125082851.GA26199@v2> <1F038D39-8869-4220-A274-F6307A4264E2@FreeBSD.org> <20190125091334.GA26545@v2> <6DD219EC-C898-499E-BF58-AB653A7114DB@FreeBSD.org>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Excuse my brevity; I'll address the rest after getting some sleep,
but I'd like to clarify one crucial thing.  I think that's actually
_the_ point where I screwed up: I didn't expect people to actually
care for what I considered a cosmetic change, and I didn't realize
the need to explain what this commit does _not_ affect.

(And I've been reminded by rgrimes@ more than once that I should pay
more attention to my commit messages.  Oh well.  Perhaps I'll learn
this time.)

On 0125T1647, Devin Teske wrote:
> 
> 
> > On Jan 25, 2019, at 1:13 AM, Edward Napierala <trasz@freebsd.org> wrote:

[..]

> >>>> PS1 should have a reasonable default. If that default is not reasonable, then we should change the C code.
> >>>> 
> >>>> Maybe I see things differently, but I'd rather see PS1 default change so no profile/shrc change is necessary.
> >>> 
> >>> Thank you, that's actually a valid argument.  I believe that's also what
> >>> bash does.  It would be more intrusive, though, and I kind of don't like
> >>> the idea of hardcoding things that can easily be dealt with with in a more
> >>> "high-level" way.
> >>> 
> >>>> I prefer that sh, in its default configuration, not attempt to read $HOME/.shrc, for security reasons.
> >>> 
> >>> Can you elaborate?  It already reads $HOME/.profile; how is $HOME/.shrc
> >>> different?
> >> 
> >> If you read "The Cuckoo's Egg" by Clifford Stoll, you'll understand the importance of "one place to exploit versus two."
> >> 
> >> (situation)
> >> 
> >> Say you've been running FreeBSD for 20 years (it turned 25 years old last year, so this is not only possible, but plausible).
> >> You know all the areas of interest where an attacker could inject code.
> >> You take care to lock down each one.
> >> But come to your surprise ...
> >> 
> >> (hypothetical)
> >> 
> >> 6 months after you upgraded from 11.2 to the latest 12.x, you find that you didn't take into account that $HOME/.profile (which you perhaps locked down with a "chflags" command) now branches out to a new file which you've never taken steps to lock down, keep an eye on, or audit (e.g., by using DTrace remote-logging, tripwire, or other means). You only found out 6 months after the upgrade because someone exploited it. At that point, the security event has already occurred.
> >> 
> >> When I worked at "the banks" shit like this was always on our radar. Changes like this were often cited for the reason why one bank moved to BoKs for security.
> > 
> > The change we're discussing doesn't affect upgrades at all - it's only
> > for new installs.
> 
> mergemaster, iirc, will merge in changes to etc files after an upgrade.
> So this would effect anybody that goes through an upgrade and performs mergemaster.

No, it won't - it doesn't affect files in /etc at all.  It doesn't
affect stuff that's being installed by mergemaster(8), nor stuff
installed by 'make install'.  It only affects the default /root/.profile
and /root/.shrc, as installed by bsdinstall(8) or shipped as VM or SD
card images.

[..]

> >  And it doesn't affect root by default, you
> > need to change their shell from csh(1) to sh(1).
> 
> By your own commit messages admission, this is for the toor account, so it does affect a user (and as you were keen to point out, users with the default shell).

Yes, but it only affects the toor account for new installs, and the account
is locked by default.




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20190125095051.GA26744>