possible overflow?

Fernando RUIZ CASAS correo at fernando-ruiz.com
Mon Oct 22 17:20:16 UTC 2001


Hi.
	The rtems getpwent() and getgrent() are very similar and
without check in order to avoid the overflow.

Really a new implementation more sure and placing the global statics vars
in the private_env would be appreciated.
But?
Anybody use the passwd file to check the user.
FTP doesn't use this.
SHELL uses it but without checking the password.

Another service uses it?
is't interesting?

Fernando RUIZ CASAS
home: correo at fernando-ruiz.com
work: fernando.ruiz at ctv.es





> -----Mensaje original-----
> De: Joel Sherrill [mailto:joel.sherrill at OARcorp.com]
> Enviado el: lunes, 22 de octubre de 2001 14:01
> Para: rtems-users at OARcorp.com
> Asunto: possible overflow?
>
>
> This was reportd on the newlib list.  We do not use
> this getpwent.c, but I thought this would be worth
> double checking.
>
> Not that RTEMS has high security for users, but I thought
> this would be worth checking against the RTEMS version
> for safety's sake.
>
> --joel
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> From: Bjoern Voigt <bjoern at cs.tu-berlin.de>
> Subject: Security Problem ( Buffer Overflow) in newlib
> To: <newlib at sources.redhat.com>
>
> Hello Cygwin-Friends,
>
> I made some C/C++ experiments with Cygwin and found an Buffer Overflow
> problem in the newlib library. I have a CVS snapshot
> "cygwin-src-20010907.tar.bz2" of Cygwin/Newlib, but the problem isn't
> new.
>
> Let us take a look at newlib/libc/unix/getpwent.c:
>
> Line 13-19:
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> static char logname[8];
> static char password[1024];
> static char gecos[1024];
> static char dir[1024];
> static char shell[1024];
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Line 33-37:
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>       sscanf (buf, "%[^:]:%[^:]:%d:%d:%[^:]:%[^:]:%s\n",
> 	      logname, password, &pw_passwd.pw_uid,
>              &pw_passwd.pw_gid, gecos,
> 	      dir, shell);
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> We see, that there is no length checking.
>
> One example for a buffer overflow:
>
> 1) Cygwin is installed as "administrator", so /etc/passwd contains:
>    administator:x:1111:2222:Administrator:/home/administrator:/bin/bash
>
> 2) The word "Administrator" has 13 characters, but logname[8] has only
>    7 characters plus '\0'.
>
> I suggest to dynamically resize logname, password, dir and shell. As
> an (not so nice) alternative we can check the length and cut for
> instance logname after xy characters.
>
> For testing I uses the following entry in /etc/passwd:
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> administator:x:3333:100:Administrator:/home/administrator:/bin/bash
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> and the following C program (runs on Cygwin and Linux):
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> #include <pwd.h>
>
> int main(int argc, char *argv[])
> {
>   struct passwd *pw;
>   if(argc!=2) {
>       printf("usage: %s loginname\n",argv[0]);
>       return 1;
>   }
>   pw=getpwnam(argv[1]);
>   if(pw) {
>       printf("char  *pw_name:               %s\n",pw->pw_name);
>       printf("char  *pw_passwd:             %s\n",pw->pw_passwd);
>       printf("int   pw_uid:                 %d\n",pw->pw_uid);
>       printf("int   pw_gid:                 %d\n",pw->pw_gid);
>       /* on Linux there is no pw_comment */
>       /*printf("char  *pw_comment:            %s\n",pw->pw_comment);*/
>       printf("char  *pw_gecos:              %s\n",pw->pw_gecos);
>       printf("char  *pw_dir:                %s\n",pw->pw_dir);
>       printf("char  *pw_shell:              %s\n",pw->pw_shell);
>   }
>   else {
>       printf("Could not find %s !\n",argv[1]);
>       return 2;
>   }
>   return 0;
> }
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Bye, Björn
>
> --
> Björn Voigt <bjoern at cs.tu-berlin.de>
> WWW:     http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~bjoern/
>




More information about the users mailing list