AW: Bug#4902: Major security hole in xvmount
>I do not see any reason to panic. xvmount itself is
>not more or less safe than any user mount. It bears
>exactly the same risks. One simply has to take exactly
>the same care when configuring the /etc/xvmounttab as
>when editing the /etc/fstab. If you configure your
>/etc/fstab to enable SUID and DEV on an user mount
>point exactly the same can happen.
Absolutely true. But no other user mount is installed with these options
enabled by default!
>Nevertheless, you are certainly right that I should have
>added a warning notice that one HAS TO take this care
>when editing the /etc/xvmounttab. Moreover, the choice
>of the defaults by the author was not optimal. I have
>changed this now to be exactly equivalent to the
>presets for a noraml user mount. However, I do not see
>any reason to generally disable SUID or DEV. It should
>stay the decision of the sysop what is to be enabled
>or not. Since the single user has no possibility to
>influence the mount point or the mount options this
>is no general security hole.
>
>I hope you can agree. Then I will release the
>corrected version.
I do. Just make sure that root has to do something to enable these
dangerous mounts.
Michael
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