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Date:      Sat, 23 Aug 2008 10:22:19 +0200
From:      Ivan Voras <ivoras@freebsd.org>
To:        freebsd-arch@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Magic symlinks redux
Message-ID:  <g8ohbu$a23$1@ger.gmane.org>
In-Reply-To: <p0624080ec4d51f26d476@[128.113.24.47]>
References:  <g8kv7v$sp2$1@ger.gmane.org>	<20080822150020.GA57443@lor.one-eyed-alien.net>	<9bbcef730808220802pa84b597u457100a23b03a80c@mail.gmail.com>	<20080822153945.GC57443@lor.one-eyed-alien.net>	<9bbcef730808220853q22666b44n5ca2b7add991191f@mail.gmail.com>	<20080822161314.GE57443@lor.one-eyed-alien.net> <p0624080ec4d51f26d476@[128.113.24.47]>

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Garance A Drosehn wrote:

> I like the idea of having some of these mostly-static values,
> although (as you note), we should to think about how these might
> be effected within jails.  I have jails (really chroot areas)
> which have different @osreleases than the running kernel, for
> instance.

This last case would be problematic since symlinks are resolved in=20
kernel and the kernel can't really see the different userland releases.=20
64-bit call vs 32-bit is ok.

> FWIW, I'd prefer to see the dragonfly-ish implementation over
> the netbsd-ish implementation.
>=20
>>  > Your example with uid is solved just like in userland (though
>>  > the names are messed up) and reflect getuid() and geteuid().
>>
>> Small changes to the file system namespace can easily lead to security=

>> issues when applications assume the namespace is static.  This is
>> particularly true for setuid binaries.
>=20
> I am extremely uneasy about adding anything related to uid's or
> gid's, or similar dynamic values.=20

This argument pops up often without explanation. The only thing I can=20
think of is applications using ".." on a dynamic symlink and ending up=20
somewhere where it doesn't want to, but this can also be said for normal =

symlinks.

Can anyone explain more possible security problems with having @uid in=20
varsymlinks?

> I can't help but think tbat
> any case where this would be useful, it would also be very risky
> with-respect-to setuid() binaries.

I posted a nice use-case at the first post: per-user /tmp like in=20
http://www.feyrer.de/NetBSD/bx/blosxom.cgi/nb_20080714_0251.html . Of=20
course it's a "nice to have", not a critical feature.

>>  > (I don't care about the syntax: @{something} vs ${something},
>>  > though I think NetBSD made the better choice since these
>>  > variables are not accessing the process environment).
>>
>> This is something I've been debating.  I've been leading toward
>> something other than ${something}.  Either @{} or %{} or else
>> going all the way to something like %%something%%.  I don't like
>> the unanchored components netbsd uses.
>=20
> This could easily degenerate into a bikeshed issue, but let me
> at least say that I think we should avoid  "@varname".  That's
> the syntax which AFS/OpenAFS/ARLA uses for their equivalent of
> variant filename paths, and I think it would be good if we avoid
> any confusion with that.

How about "@{varname}" ?



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