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Bug 661756

Summary: filesystem permission violation [need to withdraw]
Product: Gentoo Security Reporter: animantbk
Component: KernelAssignee: Gentoo Kernel Security <security-kernel>
Status: RESOLVED INVALID    
Severity: major CC: bitlord0xff
Priority: Normal    
Version: unspecified   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Package list:
Runtime testing required: ---

Description animantbk 2018-07-21 20:01:52 UTC
It was discovered, any user is able to change file of other user (e.g., root) without reading and writing permissions.


Step to reproduce:

1. Under 'root' user create folder with o+wx (at least) permissions:

    root# mkdir -m 703 /opt/configs
    root# echo "test" > /opt/configs/my.cnf
    root# chmod 700 /opt/configs/my.cnf      #guest may even not have reading permissions
    root# ls -all /opt/configs
        drwx----wx  2 root root 4096 Jul 21 19:19 .
        drwx------ 12 root root 4096 Jul 21 19:19 ..
        -rwx------  1 root root    5 Jul 21 19:17 my.cnf

2. 'guest' first creates new content to be replaced with root-owned one:

     guest$ echo "rogue content" > fake.txt

3. 'guest' replaces original root-owned file with the fake (without read and write permissions):

     guest$ cp fake.txt /opt/configs/my.cnf -f  #you also may use 'mv'

4. The result is that file /opt/configs/my.cnf is unauthorized overwritten, new permission and owner are the same as in 'fake.txt' file

    root# ls -all /opt/configs/my.cnf
        -rw-r--r--  1 guest guest    4 Jul 21 19:30 my.cnf


Testing environment:
    Linux calculate 4.14.52-calculate, filesystem ext4
    Linux dojo 3.2.0-89-generic, filesystem ext4
Comment 1 Branko Grubic 2018-07-22 14:57:24 UTC
Hi,

As far as I know there is nothing wrong here, it's all by design, maybe weird to someone, but if you have permission to change the content of the directory, that is exactly what you demonstrated that you can do.

This is a known "feature" on unix like systems.