Bug 134610 - permissions.secure breaks startx for non-root user
Summary: permissions.secure breaks startx for non-root user
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 134611
Alias: None
Product: SUSE LINUX 10.0
Classification: openSUSE
Component: Security (show other bugs)
Version: Final
Hardware: All SuSE Linux 10.0
: P5 - None : Minor
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Security Team bot
QA Contact: E-mail List
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2005-11-21 04:02 UTC by Michael James
Modified: 2005-11-21 08:37 UTC (History)
0 users

See Also:
Found By: Customer
Services Priority:
Business Priority:
Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: ---
IT Deployment: ---


Attachments

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description Michael James 2005-11-21 04:02:45 UTC
Setting the security level to set the permissions specified in /etc/permissions.secure takes the SUID bit off /usr/X11R6/bin/Xorg. This means that unpreveleged users can't run the startx command to get a graphical interface on a text console, say a machine in runlevel 3. The files and permissions in permissions.secure seem to be lagging the files and links in /usr/X11R6/bin as: 
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root       4 2005-09-27 03:30 XFree86 -> Xorg*
-rwx--x--x  1 root root 1847788 2005-09-16 22:58 Xorg*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root       7 2005-04-28 18:28 Xwrapper -> XFree86*

/usr/X11R6/bin/Xorg                                     root:root         0711
/usr/X11R6/bin/Xwrapper                                 root:root         4755

Xorg gets its SUID bit stripped, Xwrapper is just a link so doesn't benefit from a SUID bit, and Xfree is left out entirely.

I'd suggest that if leaving a generally acessible SUID bit on Xorg is dangerous, that it's group be changed to video and only members of that group be allowed  allowed to run startx.

/usr/X11R6/bin/Xorg                                     root:video        4710
/usr/X11R6/bin/Xwrapper ( -> Xorg directly )            root:root          755
/usr/X11R6/bin/Xfree                                    root:root          755

Or else Xwrapper carry the SUID bit but be made a real wrapper that protects against misuse of a preveleged Xorg.

I can't see the sense of setting permissions.secure so tight that people are forced to back down to permissions.easy to use the system normally.
Comment 1 Ludwig Nussel 2005-11-21 08:37:56 UTC

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 134611 ***