[SSSD] [PATCH] simple access provider - don't fail on non-existing objects

Simo Sorce simo at redhat.com
Tue Jun 3 20:22:51 UTC 2014


On Tue, 2014-06-03 at 15:52 -0400, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
> On 06/03/2014 08:26 AM, Pavel Reichl wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > I noticed that if using simple access provider and having
> > non-existing group or user in access/deny list then access will be
> > denied and "su: System error" will be printed.
> > 
> > I think it's OK to simply skip non-existing objects on allow_list.
> > 
> > I'm not so sure what to do in case of deny lists. Should we also
> > just skip them or should we deny the user and print more
> > appropriate message ("su: Permission denied")?
> 
> 
> I agree that skipping (and logging) on allow lists is fine.
> 
> For deny lists, it implies that either 1) the admin typoed the
> user/group name in the list or 2) that the user/group was removed from
> LDAP.
> 
> In the first case, we're potentially dealing with privilege leakage
> (someone who shouldn't have access has it due to an admin
> misconfiguration). In the second case, this is perhaps just normal
> operating changes and shouldn't require client modification.
> 
> As I type this, I become more certain that the correct approach here
> should be to log this with a better message (in both
> SSSDBG_CRIT_FAILURE and sss_log) and just proceed as if it didn't exist.
> 
> A better message would perhaps be:
> "The [user|group] %s does not exist. Possible typo in
> simple_[allow|deny]_[users|groups]"

The secure thing to do is to fail, because you do not know with
certainty who should be allowed.

Deny lists should simply not be used but we fell again in the trap and
now we need to act accordingly.

Simo.

-- 
Simo Sorce * Red Hat, Inc * New York




More information about the sssd-devel mailing list