[systemd-devel] [HEADSUP] /var/lock and /var/lock/lockdev

[Ludwig Nussel]

Lennart Poettering wrote:
> On Mon, 04.04.11 10:56, Ludwig Nussel (ludwig.nussel at suse.de) wrote:
> > Lennart Poettering wrote:
> > 
> > So as long as there are no inherently unsolvable problems
> > with lockdev using /var/lock directly I see no need to go the a half
> > solution /var/lock/lockdev.
> 
> There are. A lot of software creates subdirectories beneath
> /var/lock, for example LVM. If you allow creation of lockfiles in
> /var/lock, then this enables the same programs to break LVM (and
> everything else creating subdirs there), and even use LVM to break the
> system even further.
> 
> That's the point that https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=581884
> tries to make.

Well, that's not nice but not an immediate problem either. You'd
have to exploit a bug in lockdev to gain access to the lock group
first. Same risk as with any other setuid program.

> > How many packages in Fedora that did not use lockdev already were
> > actually patched to use /var/lock/lockdev anyways?
> 
> No idea, this happened before my time.

I'd guess not many. At least one of the more obvious candidates,
pppd still puts it's lock file in /var/lock.

cu
Ludwig

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