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Bug#417995: initramfs-tools: lets ordinary users read the root filesystem's raw block device



On Fri, Apr 06, 2007 at 01:39:35AM +0200, Fabian Pietsch wrote:
> Package: initramfs-tools
> Version: 0.85f
> Severity: critical
> Tags: security patch
> Justification: root security hole

> A system that was booted from an initramfs created by initramfs-tools has
> the following device node in the booted system's /dev:

For the record, this only happens when using the lilo compatibility
functionality.  It's still a security problem, of course, but this explains
why I'm not able to reproduce it on any of my systems.

> klibc-utils' mknod doesn't seem to support passing permissions on the
> command line, so umask or chmod would be needed. For "BUSYBOX=y" in
> /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf, after applying the following patch,
> running "update-initramfs -u" and rebooting, the device node's permissions
> are sane:

> | brw------- 1 root root 3, 7 Apr  6 00:50 /dev/root

> --- /usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/functions.orig
> +++ /usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/functions
> @@ -231,6 +231,7 @@
>  		;;
>  	esac
>  
>  	mknod /dev/root b ${major} ${minor}
> +	chmod go-rw /dev/root
>  	ROOT=/dev/root
>  }

This looks like an appropriate fix to me.

Cheers,
-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon@debian.org                                   http://www.debian.org/



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