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9 Security
9.1 On security
Fundamentally
1 deny all
2 permit explicitly things we believe as secure
3 ask ambiguous situations to a maintainer
e.g. insecure syntax commands?
9.2 Security Check Routine
Two security policy concepts for security are typical.
1 deny all, permit secure conditions
2 permit all, deny known insecure conditions.
fml works under policy 1.
&SecureP function checks under the policy "1 deny all, permit secure
conditions". It restricts the fml command syntax. The rule is
1 ignore \w/\w , deny both ../ and .[a.]/
permit special command syntax m=\d+.
2 permit /^[\#\s\w\-\.\,\@\:]+$/
3 A user can use %SECURE_REGEXP hash table.
Example:
$SECURE_REGEXP{'whois'} =
'\s*whois\s+\033\$[\@B][\041-\176]+\033\([BJ]\s*';
%INSECURE_REGEXP to reject special patterns,
which you think as insecure.
4 errors if syntax contains others.
Example:
summary (permit)
mget 1-20,30,last:20 mp 1 (permit)
mget 10? mp 1 (denied in default)
mget 1[012]? mp 1 (denied in default)
chaddr fukachan@phys.titech.ac.jp fukachan@beth.phys.titech.ac.jp (permit)
$SECURE_REGEXP{'whois'} = '\s*whois\s+\033\$[\@B][\041-\176]+\033\([BJ]\s*';
The pattern is related with UNIX shell.
Quoted from 4.4BSD:/usr/share/man/cat1/sh.0
Shell Patterns
A pattern consists of normal characters, which match them-
selves, and meta-characters. The meta-characters are
``!'', ``*'', ``?'', and ``[''. These characters lose
there special meanings if they are quoted. When command
or variable substitution is performed and the dollar sign
or back quotes are not double quoted, the value of the
variable or the output of the command is scanned for these
characters and they are turned into meta-characters.
An asterisk (``*'') matches any string of characters. A
question mark matches any single character. A left bracket
(``['') introduces a character class. The end of the
character class is indicated by a ``]''; if the ``]'' is
missing then the ``['' matches a ``['' rather than intro-
ducing a character class. A character class matches any
of the characters between the square brackets. A range
of characters may be specified using a minus sign. The
character class may be complemented by making an exclama-
tion point the first character of the character class.
To include a ``]'' in a character class, make it the first
character listed (after the ``!'', if any). To include a
minus sign, make it the first or last character listed
NOTE: 1998/11/08 permit "admin add MAR+KUN@DOMAIN " syntax
+'ed user <addr+ext@domain> (for sendmail users):
fix to permit this address syntax when automagic registration.
but not fix to permit command with this addr beautifully.
# so require more eloborate design
9.3 DNS Spoofing
If
$LOG_CONNECTION = 1;
is defined, fml.pl logs the host address connecting to fml.pl running
server. The value is taken by getpeername(). The result is set in
$PeerAddr. You can use DNS check by this.
9.4 Address Spoofing
no answer since this spoof is in low layers.
9.5 SYN Flooding
no answer in lower layers.
9.6 Email address and RFC822 representation
For example, a famous fwtk firewall toolkit checks address
syntax. RFC822 permits a syntax but it may be insecure related to
sendmail's implementation.
RFC822 is theoretical limit of representation. The syntax does not
corresponds to usually used syntax.
9.7 smrsh.c
"|program ..."
smrsh.c restricts executables run by sendmail. For example you can
restrict executables only in /usr/adm/sm.bin runs under this system.
In this case you should rewrite include file /usr/adm/sm.bin/fml.pl.
smrsh.c is in sendmail packages.
9.8 access(2)
smrsh.c uses access();D but ...
--- NetBSD 1.2REL /usr/share/man/cat2/access.0
CAVEAT
Access() is a potential security hole and should never be used.
4th Berkeley Distribution September 15, 1996 2
--- perl5.003/perl.c
/* On this access check to make sure the directories are readable,
* there is actually a small window that the user could use to make
* filename point to an accessible directory. So there is a faint
* chance that someone could execute a setuid script down in a
* non-accessible directory. I don't know what to do about that.
* But I don't think it's too important. The manual lies when
* it says access() is useful in setuid programs.
*/
9.9 Precedence Priority
sendmail 8.8.5 operations manual tells:
5.7. P -- Precedence Definitions
Values for the "Precedence:" field may be defined
using the P control line. The syntax of this field
is:
Pname==num
When the name is found in a "Precedence:" field, the
message class is set to num. Higher numbers mean
higher precedence. Numbers less than zero have the
special property that if an error occurs during pro-
cessing the body of the message will not be returned;
this is expected to be used for "bulk" mail such as
through mailing lists. The default precedence is
zero. For example, our list of precedences is:
Pfirst-class=0
Pspecial-delivery=100
Plist=-30
Pbulk=-60
Pjunk=-100
People writing mailing list exploders are encouraged
to use "Precedence: list". Older versions of sendmail
(which discarded all error returns for negative prece-
dences) didn't recognize this name, giving it a
default precedence of zero. This allows list main-
tainers to see error returns on both old and new ver-
sions of sendmail.
9.10 4.4BSD vacation
No message will be sent unless login (or an alias supplied using the -a
option) is part of either the ``To:'' or ``Cc:'' headers of the mail. No
messages from ``???-REQUEST'', ``Postmaster'', ``UUCP'', ``MAILER'', or
``MAILER-DAEMON'' will be replied to (where these strings are case insen-
sitive) nor is a notification sent if a ``Precedence: bulk'' or
``Precedence: junk'' line is included in the mail headers. The people
who have sent you messages are maintained as a db(3) database in the file
.vacation.db in your home directory.
9.11 File and Directory Permission Default
umask(2) default is customizable.
$FML_UMASK for fml.pl
$MSEND_UMASK for msend.pl
$UMASK is used if neither $FML_UMASK nor $MSEND_UMASK is not defined.
9.12 Directory Permissions
When plural maintainers maintain mailing lists directory and they uses
fmlserv.pl also, group writable permission is required. However
sendmail denies such settings for security today in default. It is
desirable to prepare a user e.g. "fml" to maintenance mailing lists
configurations. Or you can change /etc/sendmail.cf
e.g. DontBlameSendmail.
$USE_FML_WITH_FMLSERV
is automatically set up by fml.pl if fml.pl can find $DIR/../fmlserv
directory. If it is set, fml.pl recognizes it myself works with
fmlserv.pl. If HOME of fmlserv.pl exists not in $DIR/../fmlserv, you
need to set this variable manually in config.ph. $GID is also a
variable for fmlserv.pl.
9.13 On sendmail 8.8 check_* rule sets
Please see sendmail's book (bat book).
9.14 SMTP and Authentication
draft-myers-smtp-auth-11.txt (submitted to be Proposed Standard)
RFC2222 (SASL)
SASL: Simple Authentication and Security Layer
draft-hoffman-smtp-ssl-06.txt (SMTP over secured layer)
9.15 &system() function
Fml does not use perl's system() but the original &system(). When the
perl on OS has no fork(), we have to use perl's system(). On some
environment, a few commands cannot work well with our &system().
When some commands do not work well, try to set
$INSECURE_SYSTEM = 1; (default 0)
in config.ph. It may enable you to use the command.
On NT4, fml uses perl's system() since ntperl has no fork().
In any cases fml checks the syntax of arguments passwd to
system(). After checks, fml calls system().
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