Hi Elliot,

I think it was an oversight - the -e flag was added later.

Your proposed behaviour sounds good as a default, it doesn't need to have a flag. Maybe that could be documented in dropbear.8 and I'll mention in the changelog.

/sbin will probably already be in the path if it's running as root,
and otherwise the existing PATH from the parent should be suitable.

Cheers,
Matt

On 2024-09-11 7:34 pm, Elliot Bräck wrote:
Hi there,

When running dropbear with the flag -e ("Pass on server process
environment to child process"), I noticed that the PATH variable still
was not inherited.

This is due to PATH unconditionally being set inside of `svr-chansession.c`:

```c
        if (getuid() == 0) {
                addnewvar("PATH", DEFAULT_ROOT_PATH);
        } else {
                addnewvar("PATH", DEFAULT_PATH);
        }
```

Is this behaviour intentional?
If not, what should the behaviour be? That if `-e` is set
(svr_opts.pass_on_env), PATH should only be set to the default value
if it does not already have a value from the environment?
If it is, would a patch adding a non-default compile-time flag that
changes this behaviour be accepted?

My use-case is that I would like to run a dropbear server which
inherits the PATH environment variable from the executing environment,
but the value of this environment variable is not known at compile
time.

Thankful for your input,

ELLIOT BRÄCK
Software Engineer
Investment, OTC Core, Instruments Modelling

SimCorp A/S
Weidekampsgade 16, 2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark
www.simcorp.com
Company reg. no. 15505281


This message, and any associated files, is intended only for the use
of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain
information that is confidential, privileged, subject to copyright or
constitute a trade secret. If you are not the intended recipient you
are hereby notified that any dissemination, copying, or distribution
of this message or files associated with this message is strictly
prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify
us immediately or forward this message immediately to
[email protected]...

Thank You
________________________________

Reply via email to