[Rpm-maint] Script hooks patch

[Panu Matilainen]

On 11/23/2012 02:29 PM, Reshetova, Elena wrote:
>> I see a couple of further problems with this:
>
>> - runLuaScript() will leak memory and a file descriptor if
>> rpmpluginsCallScriptPre() fails.
>
> Sorry, will fix.
>
>> - For external scripts the hooks run on different sides of the fork():
>> pre-hook runs in the forked child, post-hook in the parent, so parent will
> be unaware of anything occurring in the pre-hook.
>
> Yes, but we can't run it in the parent, because how then we setup the
> security context on forked process?
>
>> I'd prefer the hooks called from rpmScriptRun() already so there would be
> exactly one place where to deal with them, but whether that would actually
> work is a different question entirely...
> Would look nice from code point of view for sure, but I can't figure out a
> way to do it currently...

It's sooo annoying when practicalities clash with simple and beautiful 
code... :P

>
>> External scripts have a lengthy setup sequence in the child between the
>> fork() and exec(), including a call to rpmExpand() on
> %_install_script_path. Which should not, but technically could, have a
> shell-invocation in it, which would cause a fork() + exec() of its own which
> would cause (at least in case of SELinux) the exec context setup to go to
> wrong address. It should be possible >to move the rpmExpand() into parent
> and just pass the path as an argument to doScriptExec() though but just goes
> to show how the kind of minefield this is.
>
> Oh, shell invocation isn't good at all in this case: it will be invoked with
> all rpm privileges :( Is it an intended feature or smth that we can try to
> limit? I have been thinking of this just as a way to load configuration, but
> it seems to be a worse case.

Technically any rpmExpand() and rpmExpandNumeric() call can result in 
shell invocation (and any arbitrary command through that). For example 
the %_install_script_path is by default defined as:

%_install_script_path   /sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin

It'd be perfectly legal (if dumb) to write this as:

%_install_script_path   %(echo /sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin)

...and of course you can inject all sorts of "surprises" in there too, like
%_install_script_path   %(rm -rf /home; echo 
/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin)

Besides shell, any macro can also be written in Lua, which can also 
invoke arbitrary commands, define further macros etc. Oh and "regular" 
macros can also define (and override) and undefine other macros.

So yes, its quite nasty, and somehow limiting the power that macros can 
have would be good. I've been thinking of some kind of no-exec, 
read-only mode to the macro engine for quite some time now, but there 
are many open questions in that area. Such as what to do about the 
"violators" - neither rpmExpand() or rpmExpandNumeric() can return 
errors, and even if they could, its a non-trivial job to figure out how 
to handle them in all the relevant places.

>> Internal scripts present different problems: as it is now, there's not much
> difference between calling hooks from runLuaScript() and rpmScriptRun(), but
> if we assume they'll get forked in the future, any security context switch
> would have to happen after the fork. Which inevitably causes the same
>> asymmetry with pre- and post-hooks as there is now with external scripts.
> True, but how much does the parent needs to know about it?
>
>> One way to address it would be having an "unpaired" post-fork (or pre-exec
> if you like) hook that explicitly runs in the child process, which basically
> is what we have now in the script setup hook. Which then begs the question:
> what exactly are the new script pre- and post-hooks supposed to be used for?
>> Ok, I can imagine eg logging plugin wanting to do something in both of
> those, but...
>
> Yes, I am starting to lean towards 3 set of hooks for scripts: symmetrical
> pre-post in parent (nicely combined in rpmScriptRun) and separate Setup hook
> in child. The purpose of child hook would be to setup security context, the

Security context or some other execution environment things, like 
environment variables present in the scripts (I can't think of practical 
use-cases for that atm but that doesn't mean they dont exist :)

> pre-hook can be used for initial screening (IMO important part too), like if
> we even want this particular  script from this particular package to run (I

Ah yup, that's a reasonable use-case in the security-department.

> can even think of passing script content to it, if we want to scan it for
> malware patterns, but this is probably too futuristic), and post hook can be
> used... hm... (trying to think of security reason)  maybe just simply for
> verifying how did it go and cleaning up (can't find really any specific
> reason now)

Well, not everything has to be related to security anyhow :) For example 
a logging plugin will certainly be interested in the post-script result.

>
> What do you think? Should I then change the patch to add two hooks in
> addition to current one and move them to rpmScriptRun() for clean view?

At least for now that seems like the way to go. The "setup" hook should 
perhaps be renamed to something that makes it clearer when and how its 
called, such as "scriptlet post fork", which gets called only when a 
scriptlet execution is forked (eg Lua scripts are not forked so the 
post-fork setup hook shouldn't be called for them I suppose)

Going to be interesting to see how many variations on the theme this all 
takes to get the details right :D

	- Panu -