1 files changed, 116 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/gl/idpriv.h b/gl/idpriv.h
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f454a2c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/gl/idpriv.h
@@ -0,0 +1,116 @@
+/* Dropping uid/gid privileges of the current process.
+   Copyright (C) 2009-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+
+   This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+   it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+   the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
+   (at your option) any later version.
+
+   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+   GNU General Public License for more details.
+
+   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+   along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.  */
+
+#ifndef _IDPRIV_H
+#define _IDPRIV_H
+
+#ifdef __cplusplus
+extern "C" {
+#endif
+
+/* This module allows programs which are installed with setuid or setgid bit
+   (and which therefore initially run with an effective user id or group id
+   different from the one of the current user) to drop their uid or gid
+   privilege, either permanently or temporarily.
+
+   It is absolutely necessary to minimize the amount of code that is running
+   with escalated privileges (e.g. with effective uid = root). The reason is
+   that any bug or exploit in a part of a program that is running with
+   escalated privileges is a security vulnerability that - upon discovery -
+   puts the users in danger and requires immediate fixing. Then consider that
+   there's a bug every 10 or 20 lines of code on average...
+
+   For programs that temporarily drop privileges but have the ability to
+   restore them later, there are additionally the dangers that
+     - Any bug in the non-privileged part of the program may be used to
+       create invalid data structures that will trigger security
+       vulnerabilities in the privileged part of the program.
+     - Code execution exploits in the non-privileged part of the program may
+       be used to invoke the function that restores high privileges and then
+       execute additional arbitrary code.
+
+   1) The usual, and reasonably safe, way to minimize the amount of code
+      running with privileges is to create a separate executable, with setuid
+      or setgid bit, that contains only code for the tasks that require
+      privileges (and,of course, strict checking of the arguments, so that the
+      program cannot be abused). The main program is installed without setuid
+      or setgid bit.
+
+   2) A less safe way is to do some privileged tasks at the beginning of the
+      program's run, and drop privileges permanently as soon as possible.
+
+      Note: There may still be security issues if the privileged task puts
+      sensitive data into the process memory or opens communication channels
+      to restricted facilities.
+
+   3) The most unsafe way is to drop privileges temporarily for most of the
+      main program but to re-enable them for the duration of privileged tasks.
+
+      As explained above, this approach has uncontrollable dangers for
+      security.
+
+      This approach is normally not usable in multithreaded programs, because
+      you cannot know what kind of system calls the other threads could be
+      doing during the time the privileges are enabled.
+
+   With approach 1, you don't need gnulib modules.
+   With approach 2, you need the gnulib module 'idpriv-drop'.
+   With approach 3, you need the gnulib module 'idpriv-droptemp'. But really,
+   you should better stay away from this approach.
+ */
+
+/* For more in-depth discussion of these topics, see the papers/articles
+   * Hao Chen, David Wagner, Drew Dean: Setuid Demystified
+     <http://www.usenix.org/events/sec02/full_papers/chen/chen.pdf>
+   * Dan Tsafrir, Dilma da Silva, David Wagner: The Murky Issue of Changing
+     Process Identity: Revising "Setuid Demystified"
+     <http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~daw/papers/setuid-login08b.pdf>
+     <http://code.google.com/p/change-process-identity/>
+   * Dhruv Mohindra: Observe correct revocation order while relinquishing
+     privileges
+     <https://www.securecoding.cert.org/confluence/display/seccode/POS36-C.+Observe+correct+revocation+order+while+relinquishing+privileges>
+ */
+
+
+/* For approach 2.  */
+
+/* Drop the uid and gid privileges of the current process.
+   Return 0 if successful, or -1 with errno set upon failure. The recommended
+   handling of failure is to terminate the process.  */
+extern int idpriv_drop (void);
+
+
+/* For approach 3.  */
+
+/* Drop the uid and gid privileges of the current process in a way that allows
+   them to be restored later.
+   Return 0 if successful, or -1 with errno set upon failure. The recommended
+   handling of failure is to terminate the process.  */
+extern int idpriv_temp_drop (void);
+
+/* Restore the uid and gid privileges of the current process.
+   Return 0 if successful, or -1 with errno set upon failure. The recommended
+   handling of failure is to not perform the actions that require the escalated
+   privileges.  */
+extern int idpriv_temp_restore (void);
+
+
+#ifdef __cplusplus
+}
+#endif
+
+
+#endif /* _IDPRIV_H */