Re: Bug#404927: udev believes hardware raid devices are removable and sets the permissions to group floppy

[dann frazier <dannf@debian.org>]

On Thu, Jan 04, 2007 at 05:39:31PM +0100, Marco d'Itri wrote:
> On Jan 04, dann frazier <dannf@debian.org> wrote:
> 
> > Right - but what I'm suggesting is that we change the default group
> > for removable block devices from "floppy" to "disk".
> > e.g., something like this untested patch:
> No way.
> Look at the reactions to these bugs: #402622, #402649, #321642

Ok I've read through these reports and it looks like I misunderstood
how we currently use the floppy group. It appears to be used for more
devices than just floppies, though it seems counterintuitive to me.

Can you point me to (or explain) how the floppy group is currently
defined and how it is differentiated by plugdev?

For now, I can only suggest adding workarounds for the devices
identified by Mark in this report - aacraid, ips, and dpt_i2o.

And perhaps we should update the passwd/make-user Template in
user-setup to warn that this first account will have "special"
priveleges?

> I think they both trust the kernel about knowing if a device is
> removable or not.

yes, that makes sense - I was only thinking about the security aspect
of this issue when I asked, since that is what earned this bug such a
high severity.

> > > I also wonder why no other distribution noticed this.
> > Its probably worth asking on the udev list - you want me to do this?
> OK.

I'll send a note after this message.

I just took a look at the distro config files in the udev upstream
tarball, and it looks like we are the only ones that use the
removable flag when picking a group, so its probably not a big deal
for them, security wise.


-- 
dann frazier