Re: Debian patching KDE to use /etc for configuration (was: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: call for testers: udev predictable network interface names)
> > > > How about uncommenting a line that does so. All you are buying into is > > a default setup. > > App authors don't ship configs like that though. Does apt ship a sudo > config? Does anything? Perhaps you missed my opening message on this topic, except it was in your first reply. __ I remember reading a while back that distros had some blunders in writing secure sudoers files and so it was emptied. Is that true? I still ascert that apps adding groups with NOPASSWD sudoers lines perhaps even commented out by default in all or some cases is far better than polkit for many reasons. Any counter argument can apply to sudo too and rather easily. > The nice thing about (really dbus, not so much polkit per se) is that > I can offer a nice API for applications that is not command line > based. No parsing strings, no 'oh this tool writes to stderr, that one > writes to stdout, I need to ignore these lines...) > What is wrong with sed and you can simply echo files in some sudoers.d config. What kind of unix dev cannot handle text strings. That is one of the problems with it too, especially if polkit becomes over used and perhaps this is below the belt but it's certainly true that IPC has caused Android more than enough security issues. > > > >> I don't understand 'the APIs that coders will learn instead of C.' Can > >> you elaborate? Polkit has a C api... > >> > > > > It has an api that is simply not needed? Small tools are better. > > You prefer the commandline api? (one byte for return values, half of > which are signals) > What's the problem there?. I have already stated some of the very important benefits. > > > >> I don't understand how the code will 'not be well designed to the > >> application at hand.' I mean ideally the API and the CLI are > >> essentially just wrappers around the same library of functions. > >> > > > > If you search for sites that evaluate polkit you will see that it is > > considered to encourage granting more permissions than necessary rather > > than coding a specific tool. > > Hah, because no one uses sudo to grant extraordinarily broad permissions. > They do, but it encourages them not to and not vice versa and they can easily customise the default rule to say emerge -moresecurethandefault Win Win and a couple more Wins in fact > > > >> Its unclear how polkit is 'hard'. Now it *is* new, and I will concede > >> you will have to read some manpages. However i don't think the > >> concepts are difficult. > > > > Man pages won't help with polkit and it actually generally ships with no > > configs by default. > > In Ubuntu Precise.. You still have to do way more than commenting or editing a file to restrict the default further, aka it's unlikely to happen. > > All of this is explained in man polkit. > And pkauthority and and How will that help when as I have mentioned a coders comments aren't even sure exactly what the code permits. > > > > I know about pkaction, the problem is that the actions tells you next to > > nothing about what is actually allowed. I haven't time to dig out one > > of the rediculous comments from the source now unfortunately. With > > small tools it's much better all round. > > Really? Please enumerate what giving someone access to 'emerge' can do. > Exactly, you see man emerge and grepping the source does work perfectly well there. You could make myemerge pretty quick too. > > No one maintains the sudo wrappers though. Someone maintains the > polkit actions. That someone also happens to be the upstream author. > That's what I am asking, is there any reason not to as it would be better? No reason has come up yet? > > > >> Is the polkit maintain any less 'trustworthy' than the gnome > >> maintainers? the kde maintainers? the kernel maintainers? At the end > >> of the day my machines are running software from thousands of > >> contributors. > >> > > > > I think that has been demonstrated and we are talking about root code > > and sudo is never running as such. > > I don't follow... > It is certainly far easier to exploit polkit than sudo with a decent sudoers of course for multiple reasons. -- ___ 'Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface' (Doug McIlroy) ___
Re: Debian patching KDE to use /etc for configuration (was: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: call for testers: udev predictable network interface names)
On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 12:34 PM, Kevin Chadwick wrote: >> > >> > I never meant it is rubbish as such but I saw it as rediculously >> > inferior to sudo before I even read this. >> > >> > http://drfav.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/the-quest-towards-trusted-client-applications-a-rambling/ >> >> Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but that is talking about a specific set >> of problems that I don't think polkit was actually designed to >> address. Polkit is basically for authenticating applications via >> users, not the applications themselves. If I am running app foo, and >> app foo wants to inhibit hibernation; polkit is there to ask 'hey is >> antarus allowed to inhibit hibernation? Does antarus need to auth to >> do so? Is antarus already authenticated? Now one may say 'hey but I >> only want certain applications to hibernate' and while that may be an >> interesting problem...I don't think the existing polkit intends to >> solve it. >> > > The point is that it is inferior in every way and so pointlessly causing > more work and other problems not to mention guaranteed increased > security risk having extra code constantly running as root. Why was it > started, rather than contributing to sudo. I'm glad you think it is inferior, but i don't really buy your argument. > >> > >> > >> >> It is however, designed for graphical UI single-seat systems. >> >> Its command line support sucks (they only added a CLI auth agent in >> >> May) and it is not well adopted. Multi-user systems do not work well >> >> with polkit. Certainly with polkit and dbus you can allow users to >> >> take more specific action without complex wrappers, setuid scripts, or >> >> sudo. >> > >> > Except you can't, it only encourages more coarse grained approaches, >> > less useful commands available and devs to learn an api rather than C >> > and simply moves code into a far less secure mechanism and increases the >> > chance that the code will not be well designed to the task at hand and >> > running as root. It can be a real pain to work out exactly what polkit >> > allows and you cannot just edit it to suit your application and it >> > completely ignores the existing unix security technologies with >> > brilliant track records. >> >> One could say that 'a discrete set of APIs will be no match for >> the..fined grain control that is the command line!' I would agree. I >> don't agree that this is a one-size fits all deal though. There can be >> a command line AND an API. I'd rather grant my users 'access to the >> install authenticated packages action' than have to own a complex sudo >> rule. >> > > How about uncommenting a line that does so. All you are buying into is > a default setup. App authors don't ship configs like that though. Does apt ship a sudo config? Does anything? The nice thing about (really dbus, not so much polkit per se) is that I can offer a nice API for applications that is not command line based. No parsing strings, no 'oh this tool writes to stderr, that one writes to stdout, I need to ignore these lines...) > >> I don't understand 'the APIs that coders will learn instead of C.' Can >> you elaborate? Polkit has a C api... >> > > It has an api that is simply not needed? Small tools are better. You prefer the commandline api? (one byte for return values, half of which are signals) > >> I don't understand how the code will 'not be well designed to the >> application at hand.' I mean ideally the API and the CLI are >> essentially just wrappers around the same library of functions. >> > > If you search for sites that evaluate polkit you will see that it is > considered to encourage granting more permissions than necessary rather > than coding a specific tool. Hah, because no one uses sudo to grant extraordinarily broad permissions. > >> Its unclear how polkit is 'hard'. Now it *is* new, and I will concede >> you will have to read some manpages. However i don't think the >> concepts are difficult. > > Man pages won't help with polkit and it actually generally ships with no > configs by default. In Ubuntu Precise.. /etc/polkit-1/* This contains machine and site specific configuration. Ubuntu ships a configuration such that anyone in the 'sudo' group is a 'polkit admin' and can take most actions by entering their (not roots) password. /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/* This directory contains all available actions that polkit might auth. for example, on ubuntu: org.debian.apt.policy contains the policies for apt. Install or remove packages To install or remove software, you need to authenticate auth_admin auth_admin auth_admin_keep All of this is explained in man polkit. > >> There are plenty of helpers (pkcheck springs >> to mind) that assist the user in figuring out what is 'allowed'. > > I know about pkaction, the problem is that the actions tells you next to > nothing about what is actually allowed. I haven't time to dig out one > of the rediculous comments from the source now unfortunately. With
Re: Debian patching KDE to use /etc for configuration (was: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: call for testers: udev predictable network interface names)
> > > > I never meant it is rubbish as such but I saw it as rediculously > > inferior to sudo before I even read this. > > > > http://drfav.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/the-quest-towards-trusted-client-applications-a-rambling/ > > Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but that is talking about a specific set > of problems that I don't think polkit was actually designed to > address. Polkit is basically for authenticating applications via > users, not the applications themselves. If I am running app foo, and > app foo wants to inhibit hibernation; polkit is there to ask 'hey is > antarus allowed to inhibit hibernation? Does antarus need to auth to > do so? Is antarus already authenticated? Now one may say 'hey but I > only want certain applications to hibernate' and while that may be an > interesting problem...I don't think the existing polkit intends to > solve it. > The point is that it is inferior in every way and so pointlessly causing more work and other problems not to mention guaranteed increased security risk having extra code constantly running as root. Why was it started, rather than contributing to sudo. > > > > > >> It is however, designed for graphical UI single-seat systems. > >> Its command line support sucks (they only added a CLI auth agent in > >> May) and it is not well adopted. Multi-user systems do not work well > >> with polkit. Certainly with polkit and dbus you can allow users to > >> take more specific action without complex wrappers, setuid scripts, or > >> sudo. > > > > Except you can't, it only encourages more coarse grained approaches, > > less useful commands available and devs to learn an api rather than C > > and simply moves code into a far less secure mechanism and increases the > > chance that the code will not be well designed to the task at hand and > > running as root. It can be a real pain to work out exactly what polkit > > allows and you cannot just edit it to suit your application and it > > completely ignores the existing unix security technologies with > > brilliant track records. > > One could say that 'a discrete set of APIs will be no match for > the..fined grain control that is the command line!' I would agree. I > don't agree that this is a one-size fits all deal though. There can be > a command line AND an API. I'd rather grant my users 'access to the > install authenticated packages action' than have to own a complex sudo > rule. > How about uncommenting a line that does so. All you are buying into is a default setup. > I don't understand 'the APIs that coders will learn instead of C.' Can > you elaborate? Polkit has a C api... > It has an api that is simply not needed? Small tools are better. > I don't understand how the code will 'not be well designed to the > application at hand.' I mean ideally the API and the CLI are > essentially just wrappers around the same library of functions. > If you search for sites that evaluate polkit you will see that it is considered to encourage granting more permissions than necessary rather than coding a specific tool. > Its unclear how polkit is 'hard'. Now it *is* new, and I will concede > you will have to read some manpages. However i don't think the > concepts are difficult. Man pages won't help with polkit and it actually generally ships with no configs by default. > There are plenty of helpers (pkcheck springs > to mind) that assist the user in figuring out what is 'allowed'. I know about pkaction, the problem is that the actions tells you next to nothing about what is actually allowed. I haven't time to dig out one of the rediculous comments from the source now unfortunately. With small tools it's much better all round. >The > configuration for polkit is all in /usr/share and /etc. The configs > are configurable..again in /etc. This is not something I would term > 'challenging.' > Generally there aren't any rules files, the defaults are built in and your expected to use a webbrowser, even on a server?!?! You shouldn't run lynx never mind X on a server. If some configs are in /usr/share rather than /etc perhaps that explains why one tutorial said so and it has no effect on some systems. > > > > You could try to argue that many eyes will look at a central piece of > > code but in fact less implementations will likely mean less eyes and > > just assumption that a guy who got JS through as a config language has > > everything covered. Granted, unmaintained code running as root may be > > higher with sudo but if it needs maintaining, should it be running as > > root at all or is it actually simply doing too much. > > Its not a matter of many-eyes. It is a matter of 'some other guy is in > charge of maintaining that component.' It means I can focus on stuff > that matters, and not focus on 'wrappers to make random things work.' That can apply to sudo, would be more secure and cause less problems and you see why I brought it up and asked why not, because that should be the case. > Is the polkit maintain an
Re: Debian patching KDE to use /etc for configuration (was: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: call for testers: udev predictable network interface names)
On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 11:43 AM, Kevin Chadwick wrote: >> > Unless sudo has some config setting that allows access only when >> > logged in via console it isn't really a solution. >> > >> > Rich >> > > > man sudoers -> /requiretty > >> >> I manage 'thousands' of desktops at Google and we generally like >> polkit. > > I never meant it is rubbish as such but I saw it as rediculously > inferior to sudo before I even read this. > > http://drfav.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/the-quest-towards-trusted-client-applications-a-rambling/ Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but that is talking about a specific set of problems that I don't think polkit was actually designed to address. Polkit is basically for authenticating applications via users, not the applications themselves. If I am running app foo, and app foo wants to inhibit hibernation; polkit is there to ask 'hey is antarus allowed to inhibit hibernation? Does antarus need to auth to do so? Is antarus already authenticated? Now one may say 'hey but I only want certain applications to hibernate' and while that may be an interesting problem...I don't think the existing polkit intends to solve it. > > >> It is however, designed for graphical UI single-seat systems. >> Its command line support sucks (they only added a CLI auth agent in >> May) and it is not well adopted. Multi-user systems do not work well >> with polkit. Certainly with polkit and dbus you can allow users to >> take more specific action without complex wrappers, setuid scripts, or >> sudo. > > Except you can't, it only encourages more coarse grained approaches, > less useful commands available and devs to learn an api rather than C > and simply moves code into a far less secure mechanism and increases the > chance that the code will not be well designed to the task at hand and > running as root. It can be a real pain to work out exactly what polkit > allows and you cannot just edit it to suit your application and it > completely ignores the existing unix security technologies with > brilliant track records. One could say that 'a discrete set of APIs will be no match for the..fined grain control that is the command line!' I would agree. I don't agree that this is a one-size fits all deal though. There can be a command line AND an API. I'd rather grant my users 'access to the install authenticated packages action' than have to own a complex sudo rule. I don't understand 'the APIs that coders will learn instead of C.' Can you elaborate? Polkit has a C api... I don't understand how the code will 'not be well designed to the application at hand.' I mean ideally the API and the CLI are essentially just wrappers around the same library of functions. Its unclear how polkit is 'hard'. Now it *is* new, and I will concede you will have to read some manpages. However i don't think the concepts are difficult. There are plenty of helpers (pkcheck springs to mind) that assist the user in figuring out what is 'allowed'. The configuration for polkit is all in /usr/share and /etc. The configs are configurable..again in /etc. This is not something I would term 'challenging.' > > You could try to argue that many eyes will look at a central piece of > code but in fact less implementations will likely mean less eyes and > just assumption that a guy who got JS through as a config language has > everything covered. Granted, unmaintained code running as root may be > higher with sudo but if it needs maintaining, should it be running as > root at all or is it actually simply doing too much. Its not a matter of many-eyes. It is a matter of 'some other guy is in charge of maintaining that component.' It means I can focus on stuff that matters, and not focus on 'wrappers to make random things work.' Is the polkit maintain any less 'trustworthy' than the gnome maintainers? the kde maintainers? the kernel maintainers? At the end of the day my machines are running software from thousands of contributors. > >> My package manager can have a polkit action like 'install a >> signed package' and I can grant the user access to do that, but not >> access to install unsigned packages (root exploit there...) or run >> other dangerous apt commands. It comes built into apt, so I don't have >> to write extra wrappers. > > That would be the default and wouldn't even need the command line > argument control of sudo. Just allowing updates is apt-get update. Er, apt-get update downloads new Packages files, it doesn't install any additional software. apt-get *upgrade* will. These are separate *actions*. > > In fact I have a debian system where experimental iceweasel is > installable but nothing else. I have an Arch system where the only > kernel updateable is a signed by me when offline kernel and polkit is > disabled as I don't have the time to keep track of what it is > permitting and code comments weren't helpful there. Look if you don't trust polkit, or you dislike it, or you just don't have time to understand how it works; that is cool.
Re: Debian patching KDE to use /etc for configuration (was: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: call for testers: udev predictable network interface names)
On Tue, 15 Jan 2013 22:19:37 +0200 Maxim Kammerer wrote: > This is a major problem, there are other questionable choices that > raise the question whether developers are familiar with how things are > done on Unix: > https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58787 > I have to confess that despite this being a serious matter that really made me chuckle. > > Sudo even supports regex! > > Only glob patterns, and it's not too good at that. > http://www.sudo.ws/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=500 /etc/sudoers: anonliberte = NOPASSWD: /sbin/shutdown -[hr] now sudo shutdown -h now -> allowed sudo shutdown "-h now" -> allowed (probably shouldn't be) It may not be perfect and is why I would love to see distros grow some balls or perhaps more rightly packagers and embrace sudoers again but it is far clearer what is allowed than polkit and I believe. /sbin/shutdown -[h][r] Would do what you want. You may need to test but I have never found a command I couldn't add to sudoers. After all it can only make the likes of Ubuntu and perhaps all in fact more secure ;-)
Re: Debian patching KDE to use /etc for configuration (was: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: call for testers: udev predictable network interface names)
On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 9:43 PM, Kevin Chadwick wrote: > You could try to argue that many eyes will look at a central piece of > code but in fact less implementations will likely mean less eyes and > just assumption that a guy who got JS through as a config language has > everything covered. Still can't wrap my mind around that. A call into a multi-MB generic language library (usually with JIT as well) on every PolKit action — right, a good idea. I kind of liked PolKit before that change. This is a major problem, there are other questionable choices that raise the question whether developers are familiar with how things are done on Unix: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58787 > Sudo even supports regex! Only glob patterns, and it's not too good at that. http://www.sudo.ws/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=500 -- Maxim Kammerer Liberté Linux: http://dee.su/liberte
Re: Debian patching KDE to use /etc for configuration (was: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: call for testers: udev predictable network interface names)
> > Unless sudo has some config setting that allows access only when > > logged in via console it isn't really a solution. > > > > Rich > > man sudoers -> /requiretty > > I manage 'thousands' of desktops at Google and we generally like > polkit. I never meant it is rubbish as such but I saw it as rediculously inferior to sudo before I even read this. http://drfav.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/the-quest-towards-trusted-client-applications-a-rambling/ > It is however, designed for graphical UI single-seat systems. > Its command line support sucks (they only added a CLI auth agent in > May) and it is not well adopted. Multi-user systems do not work well > with polkit. Certainly with polkit and dbus you can allow users to > take more specific action without complex wrappers, setuid scripts, or > sudo. Except you can't, it only encourages more coarse grained approaches, less useful commands available and devs to learn an api rather than C and simply moves code into a far less secure mechanism and increases the chance that the code will not be well designed to the task at hand and running as root. It can be a real pain to work out exactly what polkit allows and you cannot just edit it to suit your application and it completely ignores the existing unix security technologies with brilliant track records. You could try to argue that many eyes will look at a central piece of code but in fact less implementations will likely mean less eyes and just assumption that a guy who got JS through as a config language has everything covered. Granted, unmaintained code running as root may be higher with sudo but if it needs maintaining, should it be running as root at all or is it actually simply doing too much. > My package manager can have a polkit action like 'install a > signed package' and I can grant the user access to do that, but not > access to install unsigned packages (root exploit there...) or run > other dangerous apt commands. It comes built into apt, so I don't have > to write extra wrappers. That would be the default and wouldn't even need the command line argument control of sudo. Just allowing updates is apt-get update. In fact I have a debian system where experimental iceweasel is installable but nothing else. I have an Arch system where the only kernel updateable is a signed by me when offline kernel and polkit is disabled as I don't have the time to keep track of what it is permitting and code comments weren't helpful there. Sudo even supports regex! p.s. apt should be downloading as an _apt user, simply as best practice before adding polkit support ;-) -- ___ 'Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface' (Doug McIlroy) ___
Re: Debian patching KDE to use /etc for configuration (was: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: call for testers: udev predictable network interface names)
On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 3:00 AM, Rich Freeman wrote: > On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 5:25 AM, Kevin Chadwick wrote: >> >> I still ascert that apps adding groups with NOPASSWD sudoers lines >> perhaps even commented out by default in all or some cases is far >> better than polkit for many reasons. Any counter argument can apply >> to sudo too and rather easily. >> > > I think you need to consider the use case for polkit and such. I > believe they were focused on linux on the desktop. Imagine you have > 10,000 users running linux on the desktop. Anybody can log into any > PC. Do you want anybody to be able to remote login to any PC and > access the webcam and audio, or access local USB drives and such > (which do not have POSIX security applied to their filesystems)? > Unless sudo has some config setting that allows access only when > logged in via console it isn't really a solution. > > Rich > I manage 'thousands' of desktops at Google and we generally like polkit. It is however, designed for graphical UI single-seat systems. Its command line support sucks (they only added a CLI auth agent in May) and it is not well adopted. Multi-user systems do not work well with polkit. Certainly with polkit and dbus you can allow users to take more specific action without complex wrappers, setuid scripts, or sudo. My package manager can have a polkit action like 'install a signed package' and I can grant the user access to do that, but not access to install unsigned packages (root exploit there...) or run other dangerous apt commands. It comes built into apt, so I don't have to write extra wrappers. I don't recommend letting anyone log into any desktop, from a security policy POV :) -A
Re: Debian patching KDE to use /etc for configuration (was: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: call for testers: udev predictable network interface names)
On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 5:25 AM, Kevin Chadwick wrote: > > I still ascert that apps adding groups with NOPASSWD sudoers lines > perhaps even commented out by default in all or some cases is far > better than polkit for many reasons. Any counter argument can apply > to sudo too and rather easily. > I think you need to consider the use case for polkit and such. I believe they were focused on linux on the desktop. Imagine you have 10,000 users running linux on the desktop. Anybody can log into any PC. Do you want anybody to be able to remote login to any PC and access the webcam and audio, or access local USB drives and such (which do not have POSIX security applied to their filesystems)? Unless sudo has some config setting that allows access only when logged in via console it isn't really a solution. Rich
Re: Debian patching KDE to use /etc for configuration (was: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: call for testers: udev predictable network interface names)
> > Debian having to patch KDE to use /etc for configs is simply wrong too. > > huh huh, do you know if they have a fix for > http://bugs.gentoo.org/438790 to stop KDE from destroying upstream > polkit files? I don't, I just know that on Debian the configs are in /etc and the bug you mention, comments was what caused me to comment. "Debian patches to make /etc/kde4 the config directory". Of course it may just be that debians KDE hasn't got the polkit rubbish as it is older. I remember reading a while back that distros had some blunders in writing secure sudoers files and so it was emptied. Is that true? I still ascert that apps adding groups with NOPASSWD sudoers lines perhaps even commented out by default in all or some cases is far better than polkit for many reasons. Any counter argument can apply to sudo too and rather easily. -- ___ 'Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface' (Doug McIlroy) ___
Debian patching KDE to use /etc for configuration (was: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: call for testers: udev predictable network interface names)
On 14/01/13 20:35, Kevin Chadwick wrote: Debian having to patch KDE to use /etc for configs is simply wrong too. huh huh, do you know if they have a fix for http://bugs.gentoo.org/438790 to stop KDE from destroying upstream polkit files?
