From: "Ludovic Courtès" <ludo@gnu.org>
To: 37744@debbugs.gnu.org
Cc: guix-security@gnu.org
Subject: bug#37744: Per-user profile directory hijack (CVE-2019-17365 for Nix)
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 18:18:49 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87blufny52.fsf@gnu.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <878spksty3.fsf@gnu.org> ("Ludovic \=\?utf-8\?Q\?Court\=C3\=A8s\=22'\?\= \=\?utf-8\?Q\?s\?\= message of "Wed, 16 Oct 2019 15:25:56 +0200")
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Hi!
Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> skribis:
> In addition to the news entry that ‘guix pull’ will display, we may want
> to publicize the issue. In particular, should we:
>
> 1. Apply for a new CVE?
>
> 2. Post an article on the blog to explain in detail what happened?
> That should probably include an analysis like that at
> <https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/10/09/4>, given
> that Guix does things not entirely like Nix here.
>
> 3. Email that analysis to oss-security?
>
> 4. Push a new release?
>
> I’m tempted to think that we should do 1 to 3, as quickly as we can.
> Help welcome, in particular on #2!
Attached is a draft based on ‘etc/news.scm’.
Let me know what you think!
Ludo’.
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title: Insecure permissions on profile directory
date: 2019-10-05 14:30
author: Ludovic Courtès
tags: Security
---
We have become aware of a security issue for Guix on multi-user systems
[that we have just fixed](https://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/37744).
Anyone running Guix on a multi-user system is encouraged to upgrade
`guix-daemon`—see below for instructions.
# Context
The default user profile, `~/.guix-profile`, points to
`/var/guix/profiles/per-user/$USER`. Until now,
`/var/guix/profiles/per-user` was world-writable, allowing the `guix`
command to create the `$USER` sub-directory.
On a multi-user system, this allowed a malicious user to create and
populate that `$USER` sub-directory for another user that had not yet
logged in. Since `/var/…/$USER` is in `$PATH`, the target user could
end up running attacker-provided code. See
https://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/37744 for more information.
This issue was initially [reported by Michael Orlitzky for
Nix](https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/10/09/4)
([CVE-2019-17365](https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2019-17365)).
# Fix
The [fix](https://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/37744) consists in letting
`guix-daemon` create these directories on behalf of users and removing
the world-writable permissions on `per-user`.
For [cluster
setups](https://hpc.guix.info/blog/2017/11/installing-guix-on-a-cluster/)
where clients connect to the daemon over TCP ([thanks to the `--listen`
option of
`guix-daemon`](https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix_002ddaemon.html)),
the fix _requires_ `guix-daemon` to be able to resolve user names so
that it can create `/var/…/per-user/$USER` with the right ownership.
Note also that the `guix` command prior to this fix would not
communicate the user name it’s running under to the daemon, thereby
preventing it from creating that directory on its behalf.
# Upgrading
On multi-user systems, we recommend upgrading the daemon now.
To upgrade the daemon on a “foreign distro”, run something along these
lines:
```
sudo guix pull
sudo systemctl restart guix-daemon.service
```
On Guix System, run:
```
guix pull
sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm
sudo herd restart guix-daemon
```
Once you’ve run `guix build hello` or any other `guix` command, you
should see that `/var/guix/profiles/per-user` is no longer
world-writable:
```
$ ls -ld /var/guix/profiles/per-user
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 Jun 23 2017 /var/guix/profiles/per-user
```
Please report any issues you may have to
[`guix-devel@gnu.org`](https://guix.gnu.org/contact/). See the
[security web page](https://guix.gnu.org/security/) for information on
how to report security issues.
#### About GNU Guix
[GNU Guix](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix) is a transactional package
manager and an advanced distribution of the GNU system that [respects
user
freedom](https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html).
Guix can be used on top of any system running the kernel Linux, or it
can be used as a standalone operating system distribution for i686,
x86_64, ARMv7, and AArch64 machines.
In addition to standard package management features, Guix supports
transactional upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management,
per-user profiles, and garbage collection. When used as a standalone
GNU/Linux distribution, Guix offers a declarative, stateless approach to
operating system configuration management. Guix is highly customizable
and hackable through [Guile](https://www.gnu.org/software/guile)
programming interfaces and extensions to the
[Scheme](http://schemers.org) language.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2019-10-17 16:20 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 34+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2019-10-14 7:47 bug#37744: Per-user profile directory hijack (CVE-2019-17365 for Nix) Ludovic Courtès
2019-10-14 7:58 ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-10-14 11:53 ` Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via Bug reports for GNU Guix
2019-10-14 16:37 ` Maxim Cournoyer
2019-10-15 12:34 ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-10-15 14:31 ` Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via Bug reports for GNU Guix
2019-10-16 6:57 ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-10-16 10:22 ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-10-16 13:25 ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-10-16 14:22 ` pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)
2019-10-16 15:16 ` Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via Bug reports for GNU Guix
2019-10-16 15:19 ` pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)
2019-10-16 15:23 ` Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via Bug reports for GNU Guix
2019-10-16 17:05 ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-10-16 19:50 ` Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via Bug reports for GNU Guix
2019-10-16 19:55 ` Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via Bug reports for GNU Guix
2019-10-16 21:40 ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-10-16 21:41 ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-10-16 19:58 ` Julien Lepiller
2019-10-16 21:38 ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-10-16 15:37 ` pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)
2019-10-16 21:39 ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-10-17 2:58 ` pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)
2019-10-17 3:01 ` pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)
2019-10-16 20:28 ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-10-17 16:18 ` Ludovic Courtès [this message]
2019-10-17 19:01 ` Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via Bug reports for GNU Guix
2019-10-17 20:25 ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-10-18 2:21 ` Bengt Richter
2019-10-18 14:36 ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-10-19 1:32 ` Bengt Richter
2019-10-16 14:12 ` Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via Bug reports for GNU Guix
2019-10-16 20:01 ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-10-16 16:28 ` Julien Lepiller
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