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Re: CUPS: Add root to system-groups to make GNOME's print functionality work correctly?



On Tue 29 Nov 2016 at 08:17:32 +0100, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud wrote:

> Le lundi, 28 novembre 2016, 17.07:14 h CET Till Kamppeter a écrit :
> > On 11/28/2016 03:29 PM, Brian Potkin wrote:
> > > I added root to SystemGroup in cups-files and restarted cups. A queue
> > > was paused with cupsdisable. From g-c-c it was possible to cancel the
> > > job without unlocking the printing dialog. After unlocking I was able
> > > add/delete printers, start/stop a printer set a default printer and
> > > apparently change queue options.
> > > 
> > > Sabotage of fine-grained privileges by cups might not go down well. :)
> > 
> > Then I would suggest to actually add root to SystemGroup.
> 
> What I understand from Brian's argument is as follows: adding 'root' to 
> SystemGroup allows any user to administer CUPS through cups-pk-helper as if 
> she were member of 'lpadmin' without a password prompt.

I was also thinking the present OOTB behaviour would be broken and could
lead to cups having a critical (makes unrelated software on the system
break) bug filed against it. Is that too fanciful?

> In other words, letting cups-pk-helper run as 'root' (but accept commands from 
> any allowed users) leads to a user-to-lpadmin privilege escalation. At least, 
> it defers access control away from CUPS to cups-pk-helper.
> 
> If cups-pk-helper runs as root, could it not drop privileges, and run the CUPS 
> commands as the originating user?

Or use the CUPS API for cancelling jobs. s-c-p probably does it because
there no problem with this when it uses c-p-h.

-- 
Brian.


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