891 lines
40 KiB
Plaintext
891 lines
40 KiB
Plaintext
<sect1 id="ntsec"><title>Using Windows security in Cygwin</title>
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<para>This section discusses how the Windows security model is
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utilized in Cygwin to implement POSIX-like permissions, as well as how
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the Windows authentication model is used to allow cygwin applications
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to switch users in a POSIX-like fashion.</para>
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<para>The setting of POSIX-like file and directory permissions is
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controlled by the <link linkend="mount-table">mount</link> option
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<literal>(no)acl</literal> which is set to <literal>acl</literal> by
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default.</para>
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<para>We start with a short overview. Note that this overview must
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be necessarily short. If you want to learn more about the Windows security
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model, see the <ulink url="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa374860(VS.85).aspx">Access Control</ulink> article in MSDN documentation.</para>
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<para>POSIX concepts and specificially the POSIX security model are not
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discussed here, but assumed to be understood by the reader. If you
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don't know the POSIX security model, search the web for beginner
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documentation.</para>
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<sect2 id="ntsec-common"><title>Overview</title>
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<para>In the Windows security model, almost any "object" is securable.
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"Objects" are files, processes, threads, semaphores, etc.</para>
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<para>Every object has a data structure attached, called a "security
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descriptor" (SD). The SD contains all information necessary to control
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who can access an object, and to determine what they are allowed to do
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to or with it. The SD of an object consists of five parts:</para>
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<itemizedlist spacing="compact">
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<listitem><para>Flags which control several aspects of this SD. This is
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not discussed here.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>The SID of the object owner.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>The SID of the object owner group.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>A list of "Access Control Entries" (ACE), called the
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"Discretionary Access Control List" (DACL).</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Another list of ACEs, called the "Security Access Control List"
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(SACL), which doesn't matter for our purpose. We ignore it here.</para></listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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<para>Every ACE contains a so-called "Security IDentifier" (SID) and
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other stuff which is explained a bit later. Let's talk about the SID first.
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</para>
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<para>A SID is a unique identifier for users, groups, computers and
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Active Directory (AD) domains. SIDs are basically comparable to POSIX
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user ids (UIDs) and group ids (GIDs), but are more complicated because
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they are unique across multiple machines or domains. A SID is a
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structure of multiple numerical values. There's a convenient convention
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to type SIDs, as a string of numerical fields separated by hyphen
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characters. Here's an example:</para>
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<para>SID of a machine "foo":</para>
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<screen>
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S-1-5-21-165875785-1005667432-441284377
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</screen>
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<para>SID of a user "johndoe" of the system "foo":</para>
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<screen>
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S-1-5-21-165875785-1005667432-441284377-1023
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</screen>
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<para>The first field is always "S", which is just a notational convention
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to show that this is a SID. The second field is the version number of
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the SID structure, So far there exists only one version of SIDs, so this
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field is always 1. The third and fourth fields represent the "authority"
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which can be thought of as a type or category of SIDs. There are a
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couple of builtin accounts and accounts with very special meaning which
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have certain well known values in these third and fourth fields.
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However, computer and domain SIDs always start with "S-1-5-21". The
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next three fields, all 32 bit values, represent the unique 96 bit
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identifier of the computer system. This is a hopefully unique value all
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over the world, but in practice it's sufficient if the computer SIDs are
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unique within a single Windows network.</para>
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<para>As you can see in the above example, SIDs of users (and groups)
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are identical to the computer SID, except for an additional part, the
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so-called "relative identifier" (RID). So the SID of a user is always
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uniquely attached to the system on which the account has been generated.</para>
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<para>It's a bit different in domains. The domain has its own SID, and
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that SID is identical to the SID of the first domain controller, on
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which the domain is created. Domain user SIDs look exactly like the
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computer user SIDs, the leading part is just the domain SID and the RID
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is created when the user is created.</para>
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<para>Ok, consider you created a new domain "bar" on some new domain
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controller and you would like to create a domain account "johndoe":</para>
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<para>SID of a domain "bar.local":</para>
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<screen>
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S-1-5-21-186985262-1144665072-740312968
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</screen>
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<para>SID of a user "johndoe" in the domain "bar.local":</para>
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<screen>
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S-1-5-21-186985262-1144665072-740312968-1207
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</screen>
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<para>So you now have two accounts called johndoe, one account
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created on the machine "foo", one created in the domain "bar.local".
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Both have different SIDs and not even the RID is the same. How do
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the systems know it's the same account? After all, the name is
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the same, right? The answer is, these accounts are <emphasis
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role='bold'>not</emphasis> identical. All machines on the network will
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treat these SIDs as identifying two separate accounts. One is
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"FOO\johndoe", the other one is "BAR\johndoe" or "johndoe@bar.local".
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Different SID, different account. Full stop. </para>
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<para>The last part of the SID, the so called "Relative IDentifier" (RID),
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is by default used as UID and/or GID under Cygwin when you create the
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<filename>/etc/passwd</filename> and <filename>/etc/group</filename>
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files using the <command><link linkend="mkpasswd">mkpasswd</link></command> and <command><link linkend="mkgroup">mkgroup</link></command>
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tools. Domain account UIDs and GIDs are offset by 10000 by default
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which might be a bit low for very big organizations. Fortunately there's
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an option in both tools to change the offset...</para>
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<para>Do you still remember the SIDs with special meaning? In offical
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notation they are called "well-known SIDs". For example, POSIX has no GID
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for the group of "all users" or "world" or "others". The last three rwx
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bits in a unix-style permission value just represent the permissions for
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"everyone who is not the owner or is member of the owning group".
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Windows has a SID for these poor souls, the "Everyone" SID. Other
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well-known SIDs represent circumstances under which a process is
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running, rather than actual users or groups. Here are a few examples
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for well-known SIDs:</para>
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<screen>
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Everyone S-1-1-0 Simply everyone...
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Batch S-1-5-3 Processes started via the task
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scheduler are member of this group.
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Interactive S-1-5-4 Only processes of users which are
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logged in via an interactive
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session are members here.
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Authenticated Users S-1-5-11 Users which have gone through
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the authentication process and
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survived. Anonymously accessing
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users are not incuded here.
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SYSTEM S-1-5-18 A special account which has all
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kinds of dangerous rights, sort of
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an uber-root account.
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</screen>
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<para>For a full list please refer to the MSDN document <ulink
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url="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa379649.aspx">Well-known
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SIDs</ulink>. The Cygwin package called "csih" provides a tool,
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/usr/lib/csih/getAccountName.exe, which can be used to print the
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(possibly localized) name for the various well-known SIDS.</para>
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<para>Naturally, well-known SIDs are the same on each machine, so they are
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not unique to a machine or domain. They have the same meaning across
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the Windows network.</para>
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<para>Additionally, there are a couple of well-known builtin groups,
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which have the same SID on every machine and which have certain user
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rights by default:</para>
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<screen>
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administrators S-1-5-32-544
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users S-1-5-32-545
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guests S-1-5-32-546
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...
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</screen>
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<para>For instance, every account is usually member in the "Users"
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group. All administrator accounts are member of the "Administrators"
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group. That's all about it as far as single machines are involved. In
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a domain environment it's a bit more tricky. Since these SIDs are not
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unique to a machine, every domain user and every domain group can be a
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member of these well known groups. Consider the domain group "Domain
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Admins". This group is by default in the "Administrators" group. Let's
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assume the above computer called "foo" is a member machine of the domain
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"bar.local". If you stick the user "BAR\johndoe" into the group "Domain
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Admins", this guy will automatically be a member of the administrators
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group on "foo" when logging on to "foo". Neat, isn't it?</para>
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<para>Back to ACE and ACL. POSIX is able to create three different
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permissions, the permissions for the owner, for the group and for the
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world. In contrast the Windows ACL has a potentially infinite number of
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members... as long as they fit into 64K. Every member is an ACE.
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ACE consist of three parts:</para>
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<itemizedlist spacing="compact">
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<listitem><para>The type of the ACE (allow ACE or deny ACE).</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Permission bits, 32 of them.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>The SID for which the permissions are allowed or denied.</para></listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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<para>The two (for us) important types of ACEs are the "access allowed
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ACE" and the "access denied ACE". As the names imply, the allow ACE
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tells the system to allow the given permissions to the SID, the deny ACE
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results in denying the specific permission bits.</para>
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<para>The possible permissions on objects are more detailed than in
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POSIX. For example, the permission to delete an object is different
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from the permission to change object data, and even changing object data
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can be separated into different permission bits for different kind of
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data. But there's a problem with the definition of a "correct" ACL
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which disallows mapping of certain POSIX permissions cleanly. See
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<xref linkend="ntsec-mapping"></xref>.</para>
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<para>POSIX is able to create only three different permissions? Not quite.
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Newer operating systems and file systems on POSIX systems also provide
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access control lists. Two different APIs exist for accessing these
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ACLs, the Solaris API and the POSIX API. Cygwin implements the Solaris
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API to access Windows ACLs in a Unixy way. At the time of writing this
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document, the Cygwin implementation of the Solaris API isn't quite up
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to speed. For instance, it doesn't handle access denied ACEs gracefully.
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So, use with care. Online man pages for the Solaris ACL API can be
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found on <ulink url="http://docs.sun.com">http://docs.sun.com</ulink>.</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2 id="ntsec-files"><title id="ntsec-files.title">File permissions</title>
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<para>On NTFS and if the <literal>noacl</literal> mount option is not
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specified for a mount point, Cygwin sets file permissions as in POSIX.
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Basically this is done by defining a SD with the matching owner and group
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SIDs, and a DACL which contains ACEs for the owner, the group and for
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"Everyone", which represents what POSIX calls "others".</para>
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<para>To use Windows security correctly, Cygwin depends on the files
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<filename>/etc/passwd</filename> and <filename>/etc/group</filename>.
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These files define the translation between the Cygwin uid/gid and the
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Windows SID. The SID is stored in the pw_gecos field in
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<filename>/etc/passwd</filename>, and in the gr_passwd field in
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<filename>/etc/group</filename>. Since the pw_gecos field can contain
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more information than just a SID, there are some rules for the layout.
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It's required that the SID is the last entry of the pw_gecos field,
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assuming that the entries in pw_gecos are comma-separated. The
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commands <command>mkpasswd</command> and <command>mkgroup</command>
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usually do this for you.</para>
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<para>Another interesting entry in the pw_gecos field (which is also
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usually created by running <command>mkpasswd</command>) is the Windows user
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name entry. It takes the form "U-domain\username" and is sometimes used
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by services to authenticate a user. Logging in through
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<command>telnet</command> is a common scenario.</para>
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<para>A typical snippet from <filename>/etc/passwd</filename>:</para>
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<example id="ntsec-passwd">
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<title>/etc/passwd:</title>
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<screen>
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SYSTEM:*:18:544:,S-1-5-18::
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Administrators:*:544:544:,S-1-5-32-544::
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Administrator:unused:500:513:U-FOO\Administrator,S-1-5-21-790525478-115176313-839522115-500:/home/Administrator:/bin/bash
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corinna:unused:11001:11125:U-BAR\corinna,S-1-5-21-2913048732-1697188782-3448811101-1001:/home/corinna:/bin/tcsh
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</screen>
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</example>
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<para>The SYSTEM entry is usually needed by services. The Administrators
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entry (Huh? A group in /etc/passwd?) is only here to allow
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<command>ls</command> and similar commands to print some file ownerships
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correctly. Windows doesn't care if the owner of a file is a user or a
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group. In older versions of Windows NT the default ownership for files
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created by an administrator account was set to the group Administrators
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instead of to the creating user account. This has changed, but you can
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still switch to this setting on newer systems. So it's convenient to
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have the Administrators group in
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<filename>/etc/passwd</filename>.</para>
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<para>The really interesting entries are the next two. The Administrator
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entry is for the local administrator, the corinna entry matches the corinna
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account in the domain BAR. The information given in the pw_gecos field
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are all we need to exactly identify an account, and to have a two way
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translation, from Windows account name/SID to Cygwin account name uid and
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vice versa. Having this complete information allows us to choose a Cygwin
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user name and uid which doesn't have to match the Windows account at all. As
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long as the pw_gecos information is available, we're on the safe side:</para>
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<example id="ntsec-passwd-tweaked">
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<title>/etc/passwd, tweaked:</title>
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<screen>
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root:unused:0:513:U-FOO\Administrator,S-1-5-21-790525478-115176313-839522115-500:/home/Administrator:/bin/bash
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thursday_next:unused:11001:11125:U-BAR\corinna,S-1-5-21-2913048732-1697188782-3448811101-1001:/home/corinna:/bin/tcsh
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</screen>
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</example>
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<para> The above <filename>/etc/passwd</filename> will still work fine.
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You can now login via <command>ssh</command> as the user "root", and
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Cygwin dutifully translates "root" into the Windows user
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"FOO\Administrator" and files owned by FOO\Administrator are shown to
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have the uid 0 when calling <command>ls -ln</command>. All you do you're
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actually doing as Administrator. Files created as root will be owned by
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FOO\Administrator. And the domain user BAR\corinna can now happily
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pretend to be Thursday Next, but will wake up sooner or later finding
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out she's still actually the domain user BAR\corinna...</para>
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<para>Do I have to mention that you can also rename groups in
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<filename>/etc/group</filename>? As long as the SID is present and correct,
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all is well. This allows you to, for instance, rename the "Administrators"
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group to "root" as well:</para>
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<example id="ntsec-group-tweaked">
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<title>/etc/group, tweaked:</title>
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<screen>
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root:S-1-5-32-544:544:
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</screen>
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</example>
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<para>Last but not least, you can also change the primary group of a user
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in <filename>/etc/passwd</filename>. The only requirement is that the user
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is actually a member of the new primary group in Windows. For instance,
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normal users in a domain environment are members in the group "Domain Users",
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which in turn belongs to the well-known group "Users". So, if it's
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more convenient in your environment for the user's primary group to be
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"Users", just set the user's primary group in <filename>/etc/passwd</filename>
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to the Cygwin uid of "Users" (see in <filename>/etc/group</filename>,
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default 545) and let the user create files with a default group ownership
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of "Users".</para>
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<note><para>
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If you wish to make these kind of changes to /etc/passwd and /etc/group,
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do so only if you feel comfortable with the concepts. Otherwise, do not
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be surprised if things break in either subtle or surprising ways! If you
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do screw things up, revert to copies of <filename>/etc/passwd</filename>
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and <filename>/etc/group</filename> files created by
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<command>mkpasswd</command> and <command>mkgroup</command>. (Make
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backup copies of these files before modifying them.) Especially, don't
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change the UID or the name of the user SYSTEM. It may mostly work, but
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some Cygwin applications running as a local service under that account
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could suddenly start behaving strangely.
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</para></note>
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</sect2>
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<sect2 id="ntsec-ids"><title id="ntsec-ids.title">Special values of user and group ids</title>
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<para>If the current user is not present in
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<filename>/etc/passwd</filename>, that user's uid is set to a
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special value of 400. The user name for the current user will always be
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shown correctly. If another user (or a Windows group, treated as a
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user) is not present in <filename>/etc/passwd</filename>, the uid of
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that user will have a special value of -1 (which would be shown by
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<command>ls</command> as 65535). The user name shown in this case will
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be '????????'.</para>
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<para>If the current user is not present in
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<filename>/etc/passwd</filename>, that user's login gid is set to a
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special value of 401. The gid 401 is shown as 'mkpasswd',
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indicating the command that should be run to alleviate the
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situation.</para>
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<para>If another user is not present in
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<filename>/etc/passwd</filename>, that user's login gid is set to a
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special value of -1. If the user is present in
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<filename>/etc/passwd</filename>, but that user's group is not in
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<filename>/etc/group</filename> and is not the login group of that user,
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the gid is set to a special value of -1. The name of this group
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(id -1) will be shown as '????????'.</para>
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<para>If the current user is present in
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<filename>/etc/passwd</filename>, but that user's login group is not
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present in <filename>/etc/group</filename>, the group name will be shown
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as 'mkgroup', again indicating the appropriate command.</para>
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<para>A special case is if the current user's primary group SID is noted
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in the user's <filename>/etc/passwd</filename> entry using another group
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id than the group entry of the same group SID in
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<filename>/etc/group</filename>. This should be noted and corrected.
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The group name printed in this case is
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'passwd/group_GID_clash(PPP/GGG)', with PPP being the gid as noted
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in <filename>/etc/passwd</filename> and GGG the gid as noted in
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<filename>/etc/group</filename>.</para>
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<para>To summarize:</para>
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<itemizedlist spacing="compact">
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<listitem><para>If the current user doesn't show up in
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<filename>/etc/passwd</filename>, it's <emphasis>group</emphasis> will
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be named 'mkpasswd'.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Otherwise, if the login group of the current user isn't
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in <filename>/etc/group</filename>, it will be named 'mkgroup'.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem><para>Otherwise a group not in <filename>/etc/group</filename>
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will be shown as '????????' and a user not in
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<filename>/etc/passwd</filename> will be shown as "????????".</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem><para>If different group ids are used for a group with the same
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SID, the group name is shown as 'passwd/group_GID_clash(PPP/GGG)' with
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PPP and GGG being the different group ids.</para></listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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<para>
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Note that, since the special user and group names are just indicators,
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nothing prevents you from actually having a user named `mkpasswd' in
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<filename>/etc/passwd</filename> (or a group named `mkgroup' in
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<filename>/etc/group</filename>). If you do that, however, be aware of
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the possible confusion.
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</para>
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|
|
</sect2>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<sect2 id="ntsec-mapping"><title id="ntsec-mapping.title">The POSIX permission mapping leak</title>
|
|
|
|
<para>As promised earlier, here's the problem when trying to map the
|
|
POSIX permission model onto the Windows permission model.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>There's a leak in the definition of a "correct" ACL which
|
|
disallows a certain POSIX permission setting. The official
|
|
documentation explains in short the following:</para>
|
|
|
|
<itemizedlist spacing="compact">
|
|
<listitem><para>The requested permissions are checked against all
|
|
ACEs of the user as well as all groups the user is member of. The
|
|
permissions given in these user and groups access allowed ACEs are
|
|
accumulated and the resulting set is the set of permissions of that
|
|
user given for that object.</para></listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem><para>The order of ACEs is important. The system reads them in
|
|
sequence until either any single requested permission is denied or all
|
|
requested permissions are granted. Reading stops when this condition is
|
|
met. Later ACEs are not taken into account.</para></listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem><para>All access denied ACEs <emphasis
|
|
role='bold'>should</emphasis> precede any access allowed ACE. ACLs
|
|
following this rule are called "canonical"</para></listitem>
|
|
</itemizedlist>
|
|
|
|
<para>Note that the last rule is a preference or a definition of
|
|
correctness. It's not an absolute requirement. All Windows kernels
|
|
will correctly deal with the ACL regardless of the order of allow and
|
|
deny ACEs. The second rule is not modified to get the ACEs in the
|
|
preferred order.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Unfortunately the security tab in the file properties dialog of
|
|
the Windows NT4 explorer is completely unable to deal with access denied ACEs
|
|
while the Windows 2000 and later properties dialog rearranges the order of the
|
|
ACEs to canonical order before you can read them. Thank God, the sort
|
|
order remains unchanged if one presses the Cancel button. But don't
|
|
even <emphasis role='bold'>think</emphasis> of pressing OK...</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Canonical ACLs are unable to reflect each possible combination
|
|
of POSIX permissions. Example:</para>
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
rw-r-xrw-
|
|
</screen>
|
|
|
|
<para>Ok, so here's the first try to create a matching ACL, assuming
|
|
the Windows permissions only have three bits, as their POSIX counterpart:
|
|
</para>
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
UserAllow: 110
|
|
GroupAllow: 101
|
|
OthersAllow: 110
|
|
</screen>
|
|
|
|
<para>Hmm, because of the accumulation of allow rights the user may
|
|
execute because the group may execute.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Second try:</para>
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
UserDeny: 001
|
|
GroupAllow: 101
|
|
OthersAllow: 110
|
|
</screen>
|
|
|
|
<para>Now the user may read and write but not execute. Better? No!
|
|
Unfortunately the group may write now because others may write.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Third try:</para>
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
UserDeny: 001
|
|
GroupDeny: 010
|
|
GroupAllow: 001
|
|
OthersAllow: 110
|
|
</screen>
|
|
|
|
<para>Now the group may not write as intended but unfortunately the user may
|
|
not write anymore, either. How should this problem be solved? According to
|
|
the canonical order a UserAllow has to follow the GroupDeny but it's
|
|
easy to see that this can never be solved that way.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>The only chance:</para>
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
UserDeny: 001
|
|
UserAllow: 010
|
|
GroupDeny: 010
|
|
GroupAllow: 001
|
|
OthersAllow: 110
|
|
</screen>
|
|
|
|
<para>Again: This works on all existing versions of Windows NT, at the
|
|
time of writing from at least NT4 up to Server 2008. Only the GUIs
|
|
aren't able (or willing) to deal with that order.</para>
|
|
|
|
</sect2>
|
|
|
|
<sect2 id="ntsec-setuid-overview"><title id="ntsec-setuid-overview.title">Switching the user context</title>
|
|
|
|
<para>Since Windows XP, Windows users have been accustomed to the
|
|
"Switch User" feature, which switches the entire desktop to another user
|
|
while leaving the original user's desktop "suspended". Another Windows
|
|
feature (since Windows 2000) is the "Run as..." context menu entry,
|
|
which allows you to start an application using another user account when
|
|
right-clicking on applications and shortcuts.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>On POSIX systems, this operation can be performed by processes
|
|
running under the privileged user accounts (usually the "root" user
|
|
account) on a per-process basis. This is called "switching the user
|
|
context" for that process, and is performed using the POSIX
|
|
<command>setuid</command> and <command>seteuid</command> system
|
|
calls.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>While this sort of feature is available on Windows as well,
|
|
Windows does not support the concept of these calls in a simple fashion.
|
|
Switching the user context in Windows is generally a tricky process with
|
|
lots of "behind the scenes" magic involved.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Windows uses so-called `access tokens' to identify a user and its
|
|
permissions. Usually the access token is created at logon time and then
|
|
it's attached to the starting process. Every new process within a session
|
|
inherits the access token from its parent process. Every thread can
|
|
get its own access token, which allows, for instance, to define threads
|
|
with restricted permissions.</para>
|
|
|
|
</sect2>
|
|
|
|
<sect2 id="ntsec-logonuser"><title id="ntsec-logonuser.title">Switching the user context with password authentication</title>
|
|
|
|
<para>To switch the user context, the process has to request such an access
|
|
token for the new user. This is typically done by calling the Win32 API
|
|
function <command>LogonUser</command> with the user name and the user's
|
|
cleartext password as arguments. If the user exists and the password was
|
|
specified correctly, the access token is returned and either used in
|
|
<command>ImpersonateLoggedOnUser</command> to change the user context of
|
|
the current thread, or in <command>CreateProcessAsUser</command> to
|
|
change the user context of a spawned child process.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Later versions of Windows define new functions in this context and
|
|
there are also functions to manipulate existing access tokens (usually
|
|
only to restrict them). Windows Vista also adds subtokens which are
|
|
attached to other access tokens which plays an important role in the UAC
|
|
(User Access Control) facility of Vista and later. However, none of
|
|
these extensions to the original concept are important for this
|
|
documentation.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Back to this logon with password, how can this be used to
|
|
implement <command>set(e)uid</command>? Well, it requires modification
|
|
of the calling application. Two Cygwin functions have been introduced
|
|
to support porting <command>setuid</command> applications which only
|
|
require login with passwords. You only give Cygwin the right access
|
|
token and then you can call <command>seteuid</command> or
|
|
<command>setuid</command> as usual in POSIX applications. Porting such
|
|
a <command>setuid</command> application is illustrated by a short
|
|
example:</para>
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
<![CDATA[
|
|
/* First include all needed cygwin stuff. */
|
|
#ifdef __CYGWIN__
|
|
#include <windows.h>
|
|
#include <sys/cygwin.h>
|
|
#endif
|
|
|
|
[...]
|
|
|
|
struct passwd *user_pwd_entry = getpwnam (username);
|
|
char *cleartext_password = getpass ("Password:");
|
|
|
|
[...]
|
|
|
|
#ifdef __CYGWIN__
|
|
/* Patch the typical password test. */
|
|
{
|
|
HANDLE token;
|
|
|
|
/* Try to get the access token from Windows. */
|
|
token = cygwin_logon_user (user_pwd_entry, cleartext_password);
|
|
if (token == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
|
|
error_exit;
|
|
/* Inform Cygwin about the new impersonation token. */
|
|
cygwin_set_impersonation_token (token);
|
|
/* Cygwin is now able, to switch to that user context by setuid or seteuid calls. */
|
|
}
|
|
#else
|
|
/* Use standard method on non-Cygwin systems. */
|
|
hashed_password = crypt (cleartext_password, salt);
|
|
if (!user_pwd_entry ||
|
|
strcmp (hashed_password, user_pwd_entry->pw_password))
|
|
error_exit;
|
|
#endif /* CYGWIN */
|
|
|
|
[...]
|
|
|
|
/* Everything else remains the same! */
|
|
|
|
setegid (user_pwd_entry->pw_gid);
|
|
seteuid (user_pwd_entry->pw_uid);
|
|
execl ("/bin/sh", ...);
|
|
]]>
|
|
|
|
</screen>
|
|
|
|
</sect2>
|
|
|
|
<sect2 id="ntsec-nopasswd1"><title id="ntsec-nopasswd1.title">Switching the user context without password, Method 1: Create a token from scratch</title>
|
|
|
|
<para>An unfortunate aspect of the implementation of
|
|
<command>set(e)uid</command> is the fact that the calling process
|
|
requires the password of the user to which to switch. Applications such as
|
|
<command>sshd</command> wishing to switch the user context after a
|
|
successful public key authentication, or the <command>cron</command>
|
|
application which, again, wants to switch the user without any authentication
|
|
are stuck here. But there are other ways to get new user tokens.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>One way is just to create a user token from scratch. This is
|
|
accomplished by using an (officially undocumented) function on the NT
|
|
function level. The NT function level is used to implement the Win32
|
|
level, and, as such is closer to the kernel than the Win32 level. The
|
|
function of interest, <command>NtCreateToken</command>, allows you to
|
|
specify user, groups, permissions and almost everything you need to
|
|
create a user token, without the need to specify the user password. The
|
|
only restriction for using this function is that the calling process
|
|
needs the "Create a token object" user right, which only the SYSTEM user
|
|
account has by default, and which is considered the most dangerous right
|
|
a user can have on Windows systems.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>That sounds good. We just start the servers which have to switch
|
|
the user context (<command>sshd</command>, <command>inetd</command>,
|
|
<command>cron</command>, ...) as Windows services under the SYSTEM
|
|
(or LocalSystem in the GUI) account and everything just works.
|
|
Unfortunately that's too simple. Using <command>NtCreateToken</command>
|
|
has a few drawbacks.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>First of all, beginning with Windows Server 2003,
|
|
the permission "Create a token object" gets explicitely removed from
|
|
the SYSTEM user's access token, when starting services under that
|
|
account. That requires us to create a new account with this specific
|
|
permission just to run this kind of services. But that's a minor
|
|
problem.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>A more important problem is that using <command>NtCreateToken</command>
|
|
is not sufficient to create a new logon session for the new user. What
|
|
does that mean? Every logon usually creates a new logon session.
|
|
A logon session has a couple of attributes which are unique to the
|
|
session. One of these attributes is the fact, that Windows functions
|
|
identify the user domain and user name not by the SID of the access
|
|
token owner, but only by the logon session the process is running under.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>This has the following unfortunate consequence. Consider a
|
|
service started under the SYSTEM account (up to Windows XP) switches the
|
|
user context to DOMAIN\my_user using a token created directly by calling
|
|
the <command>NtCreateToken</command> function. A process running under
|
|
this new access token might want to know under which user account it's
|
|
running. The corresponding SID is returned correctly, for instance
|
|
S-1-5-21-1234-5678-9012-77777. However, if the same process asks the OS
|
|
for the user name of this SID something wierd happens. For instance,
|
|
the <command>LookupAccountSid</command> function will not return
|
|
"DOMAIN\my_user", but "NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM" as the user name.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>You might ask "So what?" After all, this only <emphasis
|
|
role='bold'>looks</emphasis> bad, but functionality and permission-wise
|
|
everything should be ok. And Cygwin knows about this shortcoming so it
|
|
will return the correct Cygwin username when asked. Unfortunately this
|
|
is more complicated. Some native, non-Cygwin Windows applications will
|
|
misbehave badly in this situation. A well-known example are certain versions
|
|
of Visual-C++.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Last but not least, you don't have the usual comfortable access
|
|
to network shares. The reason is that the token has been created
|
|
without knowing the password. The password are your credentials
|
|
necessary for network access. Thus, if you logon with a password, the
|
|
password is stored hidden as "token credentials" within the access token
|
|
and used as default logon to access network resources. Since these
|
|
credentials are missing from the token created with
|
|
<command>NtCreateToken</command>, you only can access network shares
|
|
from the new user's process tree by using explicit authentication, on
|
|
the command line for instance:</para>
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
bash$ net use '\\server\share' /user:DOMAIN\my_user my_users_password
|
|
</screen>
|
|
|
|
<para>Note that, on some systems, you can't even define a drive letter
|
|
to access the share, and under some circumstances the drive letter you
|
|
choose collides with a drive letter already used in another session.
|
|
Therefore it's better to get used to accessing these shares using the UNC
|
|
path as in</para>
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
bash$ grep foo //server/share/foofile
|
|
</screen>
|
|
|
|
</sect2>
|
|
|
|
<sect2 id="ntsec-nopasswd2"><title id="ntsec-nopasswd2.title">Switching the user context without password, Method 2: LSA authentication package</title>
|
|
|
|
<para>Caveat: The method described in this chapter only works starting
|
|
with Windows 2000. Windows NT4 users have to use one of the other
|
|
methods described in this document.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>We're looking for another way to switch the user context without
|
|
having to provide the password. Another technique is to create an
|
|
LSA authentication package. LSA is an acronym for "Local Security Authority"
|
|
which is a protected part of the operating system which only allows changes
|
|
to become active when rebooting the system after the change. Also, as soon as
|
|
the LSA encounters serious problems (for instance, one of the protected
|
|
LSA processes died), it triggers a system reboot. LSA is the part of
|
|
the OS which cares for the user logons and which also creates logon
|
|
sessions.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>An LSA authentication package is a DLL which has to be installed
|
|
as part of the LSA. This is done by tweaking a special registry key.
|
|
Cygwin provides such an authentication package. It has to be installed
|
|
and the machine has to be rebooted to activate it. This is the job of the
|
|
shell script <filename>/usr/bin/cyglsa-config</filename> which is part of
|
|
the Cygwin package.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>After running <filename>/usr/bin/cyglsa-config</filename> and
|
|
rebooting the system, the LSA authentication package is used by Cygwin
|
|
when <command>set(e)uid</command> is called by an application. The
|
|
created access token using this method has its own logon session.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>This method has two advantages over the <command>NtCreateToken</command>
|
|
method.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>The very special and very dangerous "Create a token object" user
|
|
right is not required by a user using this method. Other privileged
|
|
user rights are still necessary, especially the "Act as part of the
|
|
operating system" right, but that's just business as usual.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>The user is correctly identified, even by delicate native applications
|
|
which choke on that using the <command>NtCreateToken</command> method.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Disadvantages? Yes, sure, this is Windows. The access token
|
|
created using LSA authentication still lacks the credentials for network
|
|
access. After all, there still hasn't been any password authentication
|
|
involved. The requirement to reboot after every installation or
|
|
deinstallation of the cygwin LSA authentication DLL is just a minor
|
|
inconvenience compared to that...</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Nevertheless, this is already a lot better than what we get by
|
|
using <command>NtCreateToken</command>, isn't it?</para>
|
|
|
|
</sect2>
|
|
|
|
<sect2 id="ntsec-nopasswd3"><title id="ntsec-nopasswd3.title">Switching the user context without password, Method 3: With password</title>
|
|
|
|
<para>Ok, so we have solved almost any problem, except for the network
|
|
access problem. Not being able to access network shares without
|
|
having to specify a cleartext password on the command line or in a
|
|
script is a harsh problem for automated logons for testing purposes
|
|
and similar stuff.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Fortunately there is a solution, but it has its own drawbacks.
|
|
But, first things first, how does it work? The title of this section
|
|
says it all. Instead of trying to logon without password, we just logon
|
|
with password. The password gets stored two-way encrypted in a hidden,
|
|
obfuscated area of the registry, the LSA private registry area. This
|
|
part of the registry contains, for instance, the passwords of the Windows
|
|
services which run under some non-default user account.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>So what we do is to utilize this registry area for the purpose of
|
|
<command>set(e)uid</command>. The Cygwin command <command><link
|
|
linkend="passwd">passwd</link> -R</command> allows a user to specify
|
|
his/her password for storage in this registry area. When this user
|
|
tries to login using ssh with public key authentication, Cygwin's
|
|
<command>set(e)uid</command> examines the LSA private registry area and
|
|
searches for a Cygwin specific key which contains the password. If it
|
|
finds it, it calls <command>LogonUser</command> under the hood, using
|
|
this password. If that works, <command>LogonUser</command> returns an
|
|
access token with all credentials necessary for network access.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>For good measure, and since this way to implement
|
|
<command>set(e)uid</command> is not only used by Cygwin but also by
|
|
Microsoft's SFU (Services for Unix), we also look for a key stored by
|
|
SFU (using the SFU command <command>regpwd</command>) and use that if it's
|
|
available.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>We got it. A full access token with its own logon session, with
|
|
all network credentials. Hmm, that's heaven...</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Back on earth, what about the drawbacks?</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>First, adding a password to the LSA private registry area
|
|
requires administrative access. So calling <command>passwd -R</command>
|
|
as a normal user will fail! Cygwin provides a workaround for
|
|
this. If <command>cygserver</command> is started as a service running
|
|
under the SYSTEM account (which is the default way to run
|
|
<command>cygserver</command>) you can use <command>passwd -R</command>
|
|
as normal, non-privileged user as well.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Second, as aforementioned, the password is two-way encrypted in a
|
|
hidden, obfuscated registry area. Only SYSTEM has access to this area
|
|
for listing purposes, so, even as an administrator, you can't examine
|
|
this area with regedit. Right? No. Every administrator can start
|
|
regedit as SYSTEM user:</para>
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
bash$ date
|
|
Tue Dec 2 16:28:03 CET 2008
|
|
bash$ at 16:29 /interactive regedit.exe
|
|
</screen>
|
|
|
|
<para>Additionally, if an administrator knows under which name
|
|
the private key is stored (which is well-known since the algorithms
|
|
used to create the Cygwin and SFU keys are no secret), every administrator
|
|
can access the password of all keys stored this way in the registry.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Conclusion: If your system is used exclusively by you, and if
|
|
you're also the only administrator of your system, and if your system is
|
|
adequately locked down to prevent malicious access, you can safely use
|
|
this method. If your machine is part of a network which has
|
|
dedicated administrators, and you're not one of these administrators,
|
|
but you (think you) can trust your administrators, you can probably
|
|
safely use this method.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>In all other cases, don't use this method. You have been warned.</para>
|
|
|
|
</sect2>
|
|
|
|
<sect2 id="ntsec-setuid-impl"><title id="ntsec-setuid-impl.title">Switching the user context, how does it all fit together?</title>
|
|
|
|
<para>Now we learned about four different ways to switch the user
|
|
context using the <command>set(e)uid</command> system call, but
|
|
how does <command>set(e)uid</command> really work? Which method does it
|
|
use now?</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>The answer is, all four of them. So here's a brief overview
|
|
what <command>set(e)uid</command> does under the hood:</para>
|
|
|
|
<itemizedlist>
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>When <command>set(e)uid</command> is called, it tests if the
|
|
user context had been switched by an earlier call already, and if the
|
|
new user account is the privileged user account under which the process
|
|
had been started originally. If so, it just switches to the original
|
|
access token of the process it had been started with.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>
|
|
Next, it tests if an access token has been stored by an earlier call
|
|
to <command>cygwin_set_impersonation_token</command>. If so, it tests
|
|
if that token matches the requested user account. If so, the stored
|
|
token is used for the user context switch.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>
|
|
If not, there's no predefined token which can just be used for
|
|
the user context switch, so we have to create a new token. The order
|
|
is as follows.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>Check if the user has stored the logon password in the LSA
|
|
private registry area, either under a Cygwin key, or under a SFU key.
|
|
If so, use this to call <command>LogonUser</command>. If this
|
|
succeeds, we use the resulting token for the user context switch.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>Otherwise, check if the Cygwin-specifc LSA authentication package
|
|
has been installed and is functional. If so, use the appropriate LSA
|
|
calls to communicate with the Cygwin LSA authentication package and
|
|
use the returned token.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>Last chance, try to use the <command>NtCreateToken</command> call
|
|
to create a token. If that works, use this token.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>If all of the above fails, our process has insufficient privileges
|
|
to switch the user context at all, so <command>set(e)uid</command>
|
|
fails and returns -1, setting errno to EPERM.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
</itemizedlist>
|
|
|
|
</sect2>
|
|
|
|
</sect1>
|