Bug 278566 – dev-ruby/rubygems: gem install overwrites arbitrary files in /usr/bin

• Product: Gentoo Security
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description Alex Legler (RETIRED) 2009-07-21 11:18:51 UTC]

If a gem includes an executable, gem install will merge them into /usr/bin/ without checking if the executable already exists, leading to arbitrary file overwriting.

I'll attach a reproducer.

References:
http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-core/24472
http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=y&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwota.jp%2Fac%2F%3Fdate%3D20090604%23p01&sl=ja&tl=en&history_state0=

[Comment 1 Alex Legler (RETIRED) 2009-07-21 11:20:48 UTC]

Created attachment 198688 [details]
Reproducer, overwrites /usr/bin/less

Reproduce with "sudo gem install testgem-0.0.1.gem"

[Comment 2 Gordon Malm (RETIRED) 2009-07-21 21:24:33 UTC]

gem will also install executables and libraries world-writeable if they are distributed that way in the prepared gem. :p

[Comment 3 Gordon Malm (RETIRED) 2009-07-30 06:42:13 UTC]

3 more links (all to or from Flameeyes):
http://blog.flameeyes.eu/2009/07/21/again-i-don-t-like-rubygems-and-here-s-why
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2007-0469
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=480250

[Comment 4 Diego Elio Pettenò (RETIRED) 2009-07-30 11:27:58 UTC]

This is a references loop since my post was actually inspired once Alex told me of the issue ^^

[Comment 5 Alex Legler (RETIRED) 2010-05-23 09:26:58 UTC]

Still not fixed. We'll likely do this in Gentoo by not installing gem binaries to /usr/bin

[Comment 6 Diego Elio Pettenò (RETIRED) 2010-08-03 16:14:02 UTC]

1.3.7-r2 no longer installs in /usr/bin, feel free to consider closing this or releasing a GLSA.

[Comment 7 Chris Reffett (RETIRED) 2013-09-03 02:01:58 UTC]

Fixed for several years. Closing noglsa.