Secure setuid shell scripts

Rahul Dhesi dhesi at bsu-cs.UUCP
Tue Oct 25 22:03:26 AEST 1988


The set-user-id shell script bug, they say, lies in the semantics of
the file system itself.  Very well:

In article <14139 at mimsy.UUCP> chris at mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) adds:
>...there is a way to have set-ID scripts without having
>the kernel do it: you make the interpreter itself set-ID, and have it
>check the ID on the script.

Which naturally leads me to wonder:  The semantics of the filesystem
are presumably not dependent on whether the kernel handles set-uid
scripts or the set-uid interpreter does (or are they?).  Does the same
security hole exist when a shell, which has been made made set-uid to
root, executes a set-uid scrpt without the kernel's help?
-- 
Rahul Dhesi         UUCP:  <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!dhesi



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