Re: caps in elf, next itteration (the hack get's bigger)

Stephen C. Tweedie (sct@redhat.com)
Fri, 16 Apr 1999 21:48:16 +0100 (BST)


Hi,

On 16 Apr 1999 11:52:11 +0200, Christian von Roques
<roques@scalar.pond.sub.org> said:

> Just a thought,
> "Stephen C. Tweedie" <sct@redhat.com> writes:

>> It is much more than that: it is to prevent privileges leaking, so
>> that bugs in these daemons do not compromise the security of other
>> parts of the OS.

> Therefore there should be a privilege to exec(2), if there isn't
> already, which most daemons should deny themselves.

No, that's not necessary. The trick is that exec()ing a new process
doesn't automatically transfer the current process's privileges to the
new program. In a capabilities model, the exec() drops all currently
held privileges unless the new program is specifically marked to be able
to inherit certain privileges.

--Stephen

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