From owner-freebsd-security Tue Feb 27 12:56:06 1996 Return-Path: owner-security Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id MAA02551 for security-outgoing; Tue, 27 Feb 1996 12:56:06 -0800 (PST) Received: from kdat.calpoly.edu (kdat.csc.calpoly.edu [129.65.54.101]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA02546 for ; Tue, 27 Feb 1996 12:56:04 -0800 (PST) Received: (from nlawson@localhost) by kdat.calpoly.edu (8.6.12/N8) id MAA15968; Tue, 27 Feb 1996 12:55:46 -0800 From: Nathan Lawson Message-Id: <199602272055.MAA15968@kdat.calpoly.edu> Subject: Re: Suspicious symlinks in /tmp To: newton@communica.com.au (Mark Newton) Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 12:55:45 -0800 (PST) Cc: security@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <9602270411.AA25647@communica.com.au> from "Mark Newton" at Feb 27, 96 02:41:27 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-security@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk > ... also totally irrelevent: The permissions on the symlink don't > arbitrate file access permissions -- The permissions on the file it's > pointing to (ie: the destination) are used for that purpose. > > So: Not only does it not matter who owns the symlink, it also doesn't > matter how it is chmod'ed. You can set its permissions to rwxrwxrwx > without making a spot of difference to the accessibility of the file > it's pointing at. Yes, but let's say Joe User tries out the ln -s command. Now he can't delete his symlink. This behavior is broken. A user should not be able to create any type of file, whether a symlink or just a normal file, that is owned by another user. Like I said before, how about a justification as to the usefullness of this behavior? I've already provided one annoying result of it. -- Nate Lawson \Yeah, I was dreaming through the 'howzlife', yawning, car black, CS-EE double \when she told me 'mad and meaningless as ever...' and a song major, \came on the radio like a cemetery rhyme for a million crying unaccredited \corpses in their tragedy of respectable existence. - BR