Alvaro Lopez Ortega wrote:
>
> On 17 Apr 2008, at 00:06, A.D.F. wrote:
> > Stefan de Konink wrote:
> >> . . .
> >
> > OK, if user is root, then readability has to be verified
> > explicitely before opening the file.
>
> In my understanding, file system access permission checks belongs to
> the operating system. Running a program as root user implies a number
> of things: it can open a low port, it can jail itself, it can change
> system limits, AND it can read every file in the system. That is how
> Unix systems work.
>
> That's why Cherokee supports user changing, and all the modern
> operating systems include a 'web server user' such as www-data, httpd
> or www.
>
> > Indeed here some parametric policy could be added,
> > i.e. access only files readable by world, by group, by user.
>
> I'm not sure of this at all. Running servers as root is highly
> discouraged because of this kind of problems. By adding those rules we
> would be duplicating a work that the underling operating system will
> perform anyway, which means, the server would be slower and the only
> thing that we would get is to slightly improve the behavior of the
> server under a certain -let's call it- "misconfiguration"; or at
> least: 'not recommended' configuration.
>
> IMO the best thing we could do is to warn the user if the server runs
> as root. Maybe cherokee-admin could pop a red, flashy warning message
> if the server is configured to run as root. So, even if it is tougher
> I would try to educate people rather than "fix" Cherokee for hiding
> some of the potential problems of running a server as super-user.
Yes, but even if you run a Web Server with a user not equal to root,
you may want to let the web server to serve only certain static files,
i.e. those that are:
- readable by others;
- readable by group.
Imagine to have two checkbox (per server or per virtual server)
for the above two possibilities.
If you check the first option,
then a static file has to be readable by others
in order to be served by Cherokee.
You only need to use:
chmod o+r file-name(s)
or
chmod o-r file-name(s)
to enable or disable access to selected files / directories.
This is very useful because it allows you to fine grade
the accessibility of files that can be sent to clients by Cherokee.
If none of the above filters are selected then
it is enough that at least one readable bit (user, group, others)
is on to let Cherokee to serve a file / directory.
Of course, in practice, there is no overhead in applying
such filters.
Greetings.
--
Nick Name: A.D.F.
E-Mail: <adefacc () tin ! it>
E-Mail-Format: Plain Text only (please); view using font Courier New
--
_______________________________________________
Cherokee mailing list
[email protected]
http://cherokee-project.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cherokee
