[TUHS] Set-uid shell scripts

[arnold at skeeve.com]

jason-tuhs at shalott.net wrote:

> > A related problem is the inherent race condition:
> > If you do
> > 	ln -s /bin/setuidscript .
> > 	./setuidscript
> > ./setuidscript is opened twice: once when the kernel
> > reads it and finds #! as magic number and execs the
> > interpreter, a second time when the interpreter opens
> > ./setuidscript.  If you meanwhile run something that
> > swoops in in the background and replaces ./setuidscript
> > with malicious instructions for the interpreter, you
> > win.
>
> This was always described to me as the canonical reason why setuid 
> interpreted scripts were a security hole, irrespective of any specifics 
> in the shell or other interpreter.
>
> However, there's a workaround: use fdescfs.  fdescfs allows the kernel to 
> open the script, and then pass the fdescfs path for the (already open) 
> descriptor to the interpreter as the command to run.

I'm guessing by this you files like /dev/fd/42.

> According to https://www.in-ulm.de/~mascheck/various/shebang/#setuid, this 
> is supported by many systems, including Solaris, several BSDs, and OSX 
> (with a sysctl).

There's a historical disconnect here. Setuid scripts were disabled in
the mid- to late 80s.  /dev/fd didn't hit the commercial Unix world
until SVR4 in 1989, and didn't get into the other systems you mention
until even later.

So yes, that might have worked, but the solution came along too late.

Arnold