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			798 lines
		
	
	
		
			30 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			Plaintext
		
	
	
	
	
	
<sect1 id="ntsec"><title>NT security</title>
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<para>The setting of POSIX like object permissions is controlled by the 
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<link linkend="mount-table">mount option</link> <literal>(no)acl</literal>
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which is set to <literal>acl</literal> by default.  The design goal
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is to utilize the Windows access control API to implement real POSIX
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permissions.</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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<sect2 id="ntsec-common"><title>NT security</title>
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<para>In the NT 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 called "security descriptor" (SD)
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attached.  The SD contains all information necessary to control who can
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how access an object.  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
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"Security Access Control List" (SACL), which doesn't matter for our
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purpose.</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 AD
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domains.  SIDs are basically comparable to POSIX UIDs and GIDs, but are
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more complicated because they are unique across multiple machines or
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domains.  A SID is a structure of multiple numerical values.  There's
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a convenient convention to type SIDs.  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 leading "S" has no further meaning except to show that this is
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a SID.  The next number is a version number which is always 1 so far.
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The next two numbers are the authority which shows the initiated what
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kind of SID this is.  There are a couple of builtin accounts and
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accounts with very special meaning. However, computer and domain SIDs
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always start with "S-1-5-21".  The next three numbers, all 32 bit values,
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are the unique 96 bit identifier of the comupter system.  This is
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hopefully unique all over the world, but in practice it's sufficient if
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the comuter SIDs are 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>Ok, 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 NOT identical.
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For all the machines know there are two different 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.
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</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>mkpasswd</command> and <command>mkgroup</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 permission value just represent the permissions for "everyone
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who is not the owner or is member of the owning group".  Windows has a
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SID for these poor souls, the "Everyone" SID.  Other well-known SIDs
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represent more circumstances instead of actual users or groups.  Here
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are a few examples 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
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<ulink url="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa379649.aspx">Well-known SIDs</ulink>.
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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 mamber of the administrators
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group on "foo", when logging in on "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.</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 NT 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 traslation 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 typically used
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by services to authenticate a user.  Logging in through <command>ssh</command>
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or <command>telnet</command> are two typical scenarios.
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</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> to print some file ownerships correctly.  Windows
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doesn't care if the owner of a file is a user or a group.  In older
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versions of Windows NT the default ownership for files created by an
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administrator account was set to the group Administrators instead of to
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the creating user account.  This has changed, but for those older
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systems it's convenient to 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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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 dutyfully translates "root" into the Windows user
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"FOO\Administrators" and files owned by FOO\Administrators 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 for instance to rename the "Administrators" group
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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 is member of the well-known group "Users".  Additionally let's
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assume the user is also a member of the newly created group .  The default
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primary group for users is 
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<!-- TODO: The rest of the file... -->
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</para>
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<para>As you can see, I changed my primary group membership from 513 (None)
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to 547 (powerusers).  So all files I created inside of Cygwin were now owned
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by the powerusers group instead of None.  This is the way I liked it.</para>
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<para>Groups may be mentioned in the passwd file, too. This has two
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advantages:</para>
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<itemizedlist spacing="compact">
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<listitem><para>Because NT assigns them to files as owners, a
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<command>ls -l</command> is often more readable.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Moreover it's possible to assigned them to files as
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owners with Cygwin's <command>chown</command>.</para></listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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<para>The group `system' is the aforementioned synonym for the operating system
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itself and is normally the owner of processes that are started through
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service manager. The same is true for files that are created by
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processes, which are started through service manager.</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2 id="ntsec-sids"><title id="ntsec-sids.title">NT SIDs in Cygwin</title>
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<para>This has the following advantages:</para>
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<itemizedlist spacing="compact">
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<listitem><para>ntsec works better in domain environments.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Accounts (users and groups) may get another name in
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Cygwin than their NT account name. The name in <filename>/etc/passwd</filename>
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or <filename>/etc/group</filename> is transparently used by Cygwin
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applications (e.g. <command>chown</command>, <command>chmod</command>,
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<command>ls</command>):</para>
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<screen>
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root::500:513::/home/root:/bin/sh
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</screen>
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<para>instead of</para>
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<screen>
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adminstrator::500:513::/home/root:/bin/sh
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</screen>
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<para>Caution: If you like to use the account as login account via
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<command>telnet</command> etc. you have to remain the name unchanged or
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you have to use the special version of <command>login</command> which is
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part of the standard Cygwin distribution since 1.1.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Cygwin UIDs and GIDs are now not necessarily the RID
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part of the NT SID:</para>
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<screen>
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root::0:513:S-1-5-21-54355234-56236534-345635656-500:/home/root:/bin/sh
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</screen>
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<para>instead of</para>
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<screen>
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root::500:513::/home/root:/bin/sh
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</screen>
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</listitem>
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<listitem><para>As in U*X systems UIDs and GIDs numbering scheme now
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don't influence each other. So it's possible to have same Id's for a
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user and a group:</para>
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<example id="ntsec-passwd-root">
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<title>/etc/passwd:</title>
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<screen>
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root::0:0:S-1-5-21-54355234-56236534-345635656-500:/home/root:/bin/sh
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</screen>
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</example>
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<example id="ntsec-group-root">
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<title>/etc/group:</title>
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<screen>
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root:S-1-5-32-544:0:
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</screen>
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</example>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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<para>The tools <command>mkpasswd</command> and <command>mkgroup</command>
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create the needed entries by default. If you don't want that you can use
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the options <literal>-s</literal> or <literal>--no-sids</literal>. I suggest
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not to do this since ntsec works better when having the SIDs available.</para>
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 | 
						|
<para>Please note that the pw_gecos field in <filename>/etc/passwd</filename>
 | 
						|
is defined as a comma separated list. The SID has to be the last field!</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<screen>
 | 
						|
the_king::1:1:Elvis Presley,U-STILLHERE\elvis,S-1-5-21-1234-5678-9012-1000:/bin/sh
 | 
						|
</screen>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>For a local user just drop the domain:</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<screen>
 | 
						|
the_king::1:1:Elvis Presley,U-elvis,S-1-5-21-1234-5678-9012-1000:/bin/sh
 | 
						|
</screen>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>In either case the password of the user is taken from the NT user
 | 
						|
database, NOT from the passwd file!</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>As in the previous chapter I give my personal
 | 
						|
<filename>/etc/passwd</filename> and <filename>/etc/group</filename> as
 | 
						|
examples.  Please note that I've changed these files heavily!  There's no
 | 
						|
need to change them that way, it's just for testing purposes and...
 | 
						|
for fun.</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<example id="ntsec-passwd-ex-2">
 | 
						|
<title>/etc/passwd</title>
 | 
						|
<screen>
 | 
						|
root:*:0:0:Administrators group,S-1-5-32-544::
 | 
						|
SYSTEM:*:18:18:,S-1-5-18:/home/system:/bin/bash
 | 
						|
admin:*:500:513:,S-1-5-21-1844237615-436374069-1060284298-500:/home/Administrator:/bin/bash
 | 
						|
corinna:*:100:0:Corinna Vinschen,S-1-5-21-1844237615-436374069-1060284298-1003:/home/corinna:/bin/tcsh
 | 
						|
Guest:*:501:546:,S-1-5-21-1844237615-436374069-1060284298-501:/home/Guest:/bin/bash
 | 
						|
</screen>
 | 
						|
</example>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<example id="ntsec-group-ex-2">
 | 
						|
<title>/etc/group</title>
 | 
						|
<screen>
 | 
						|
root:S-1-5-32-544:0:
 | 
						|
local:S-1-2-0:2:
 | 
						|
network:S-1-5-2:3:
 | 
						|
interactive:S-1-5-4:4:
 | 
						|
authenticatedusers:S-1-5-11:5:
 | 
						|
SYSTEM:S-1-5-18:18:
 | 
						|
local_svc:S-1-5-19:19:
 | 
						|
netwrk_svc:S-1-5-20:20:
 | 
						|
none:S-1-5-21-1844237615-436374069-1060284298-513:513:
 | 
						|
bckup_op:S-1-5-32-551:551:
 | 
						|
guests:S-1-5-32-546:546:
 | 
						|
pwrusers:S-1-5-32-547:547:
 | 
						|
replicator:S-1-5-32-552:552:
 | 
						|
users:S-1-5-32-545:545:
 | 
						|
</screen>
 | 
						|
</example>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>If you want to do similar changes to your files, please do that only
 | 
						|
if you're feeling comfortably with the concepts.  Otherwise don't be surprised
 | 
						|
if some stuff doesn't work anymore.  If you screwed up things, revert to files
 | 
						|
created by mkpasswd and mkgroup.  Especially don't change the UID or the name
 | 
						|
of user SYSTEM.  Even if that works mostly, some Cygwin applications running
 | 
						|
as local service under that account could suddenly start behaving strangely.
 | 
						|
</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
</sect2>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<sect2 id="ntsec-mapping"><title id="ntsec-mapping.title">The mapping leak</title>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>Now its time to point out the leak in the NT permissions.
 | 
						|
The official documentation explains in short the following:</para>
 | 
						|
<itemizedlist spacing="compact">
 | 
						|
<listitem><para>access allow ACEs are accumulated regarding to the
 | 
						|
group membership of the caller.</para></listitem>
 | 
						|
<listitem><para>The order of ACEs is important. The system reads them
 | 
						|
in sequence until either any needed right is denied or all needed rights
 | 
						|
are granted. Later ACEs are then not taken into account.</para></listitem>
 | 
						|
<listitem><para>All access denied ACEs _should_ precede any
 | 
						|
access allowed ACE.</para></listitem>
 | 
						|
</itemizedlist>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>Note that the last rule is a preference, not a law. NT will correctly
 | 
						|
deal with the ACL regardless of the sequence order. The second rule is
 | 
						|
not modified to get the ACEs in the preferred order.</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>Unfortunately the security tab of the NT4 explorer is completely
 | 
						|
unable to deal with access denied ACEs while the explorer of W2K rearranges
 | 
						|
the order of the ACEs before you can read them. Thank God, the sort order
 | 
						|
remains unchanged if one presses the Cancel button.</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>You still ask "Where is the leak?" NT ACLs are unable to reflect each
 | 
						|
possible combination of POSIX permissions. Example:</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<screen>
 | 
						|
rw-r-xrw-
 | 
						|
</screen>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>1st try:</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>2st 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>3rd 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 official rules 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 for both, NT4 and W2K. Only the GUIs aren't
 | 
						|
able to deal with that order.</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
</sect2>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<sect2 id="ntsec-aclfuncs"><title id="ntsec-aclfuncs.title">The ACL API</title>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>For dealing with ACLs Cygwin now has the ACL API as it's
 | 
						|
implemented in newer versions of Solaris. The new data structure
 | 
						|
for a single ACL entry (ACE in NT terminology) is defined in
 | 
						|
<filename>sys/acl.h</filename> as:</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<screen>
 | 
						|
typedef struct acl {
 | 
						|
  int     a_type;  /* entry type */
 | 
						|
  uid_t   a_id;    /* UID | GID */
 | 
						|
  mode_t  a_perm;  /* permissions */
 | 
						|
} aclent_t;
 | 
						|
</screen>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>The a_perm member of the aclent_t type contains only the bits
 | 
						|
for read, write and execute as in the file mode. If e.g. read permission
 | 
						|
is granted, all read bits (S_IRUSR, S_IRGRP, S_IROTH) are set.
 | 
						|
CLASS_OBJ or MASK ACL entries are not fully implemented yet.</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>The new API calls are</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<screen>
 | 
						|
acl(2), facl(2)
 | 
						|
aclcheck(3),
 | 
						|
aclsort(3),
 | 
						|
acltomode(3), aclfrommode(3),
 | 
						|
acltopbits(3), aclfrompbits(3),
 | 
						|
acltotext(3), aclfromtext(3)
 | 
						|
</screen>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>Like in Solaris, Cygwin has two new commands for working with
 | 
						|
ACLs on the command line: <command>getfacl</command> and
 | 
						|
<command>setfacl</command>.</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>Online man pages for the aforementioned commands and API calls can be
 | 
						|
found on <ulink url="http://docs.sun.com">http://docs.sun.com</ulink> </para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
</sect2>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<sect2 id="ntsec-setuid"><title id="ntsec-setuid.title">New setuid concept</title>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>POSIX applications which have to switch the user context are using
 | 
						|
the <command>setuid</command> and <command>seteuid</command> calls which
 | 
						|
are not part of the Windows API.
 | 
						|
Nevertheless these calls are supported under Windows NT/W2K since Cygwin
 | 
						|
release 1.1.3.  Because of the nature of NT security an application which
 | 
						|
needs the ability has to be patched, though.</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>NT uses so-called `access tokens' to identify a user and it's
 | 
						|
permissions. To switch the user context the application has to request
 | 
						|
such an `access token'. This is typically done by calling the NT API
 | 
						|
function <command>LogonUser</command>. The access token is returned and
 | 
						|
either used in <command>ImpersonateLoggedOnUser</command> to change user
 | 
						|
context of the current process or in <command>CreateProcessAsUser</command>
 | 
						|
to change user context of a spawned child process. An important restriction
 | 
						|
is that the application using <command>LogonUser</command> must have special
 | 
						|
permissions:</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<screen>
 | 
						|
"Act as part of the operating system"
 | 
						|
"Replace process level token"
 | 
						|
"Increase quotas"
 | 
						|
</screen>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>Note that administrators do not have all these user rights set 
 | 
						|
by default.</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>Two new Cygwin calls are introduced to support porting
 | 
						|
<command>setuid</command> applications with a minimum of effort. 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. The call to <command>sexec</command> is not needed
 | 
						|
anymore. Porting 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>
 | 
						|
/* Use the following define to determine the Windows version */
 | 
						|
#define is_winnt        (GetVersion() < 0x80000000)
 | 
						|
#endif
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
[...]
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
  struct passwd *user_pwd_entry = getpwnam (username);
 | 
						|
  char *cleartext_password = getpass ("Password:");
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
[...]
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
#ifdef __CYGWIN__
 | 
						|
  /* Patch the typical password test. */
 | 
						|
  if (is_winnt)
 | 
						|
    {
 | 
						|
      HANDLE token;
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
      /* Try to get the access token from NT. */
 | 
						|
      token = cygwin_logon_user (user_pwd_entry, cleartext_password);
 | 
						|
      if (token == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
 | 
						|
         error_exit;
 | 
						|
      /* Inform Cygwin about the new impersonation token.
 | 
						|
         Cygwin is able now, to switch to that user context by
 | 
						|
         setuid or seteuid calls. */
 | 
						|
      cygwin_set_impersonation_token (token);
 | 
						|
    }
 | 
						|
  else
 | 
						|
#endif /* CYGWIN */
 | 
						|
    /* Use standard method for W9X as well. */
 | 
						|
    hashed_password = crypt (cleartext_password, salt);
 | 
						|
    if (!user_pwd_entry ||
 | 
						|
        strcmp (hashed_password, user_pwd_entry->pw_password))
 | 
						|
      error_exit;
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
[...]
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
  /* Everything else remains the same! */
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
  setegid (user_pwd_entry->pw_gid);
 | 
						|
  seteuid (user_pwd_entry->pw_uid);
 | 
						|
  execl ("/bin/sh", ...);
 | 
						|
]]>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
</screen>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>The new Cygwin call to retrieve an access token is defined as follows:</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<screen>
 | 
						|
#include <windows.h>
 | 
						|
#include <sys/cygwin.h>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
HANDLE
 | 
						|
cygwin_logon_user (struct passwd *pw, const char *cleartext_password)
 | 
						|
</screen>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>You can call that function as often as you want for different user
 | 
						|
logons and remember the access tokens for further calls to the second function.</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<screen>
 | 
						|
#include <windows.h>
 | 
						|
#include <sys/cygwin.h>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
void
 | 
						|
cygwin_set_impersonation_token (HANDLE hToken);
 | 
						|
</screen>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para> is the call to inform Cygwin about the user context to which further
 | 
						|
calls to <command>setuid</command>/<command>seteuid</command> should switch to.
 | 
						|
While you always need the correct access token to do a
 | 
						|
<command>setuid</command>/<command>seteuid</command> to another user's context,
 | 
						|
you are always able to use <command>setuid</command>/<command>seteuid</command>
 | 
						|
to return to your own user context by giving your own uid as parameter.</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>If you have remembered several access tokens from calls to
 | 
						|
<command>cygwin_logon_user</command> you can switch to different user
 | 
						|
contexts by observing the following order:</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<screen>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
  cygwin_set_impersonation_token (user1_token);
 | 
						|
  seteuid (user1_uid);
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
[...]
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
  seteuid (own_uid);
 | 
						|
  cygwin_set_impersonation_token (user2_token);
 | 
						|
  seteuid (user2_uid);
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
[...]
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
  seteuid (own_uid);
 | 
						|
  cygwin_set_impersonation_token (user1_token);
 | 
						|
  seteuid (user1_uid);
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
etc.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
</screen>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
</sect2>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<sect2 id="ntsec-switch"><title id="ntsec-switch.title">Switching User
 | 
						|
Context</title>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>
 | 
						|
Since Cygwin release 1.3.3, applications that are members of the
 | 
						|
Administrators group and have the <command>Create a token
 | 
						|
object</command>, <command>Replace a process level token</command> and
 | 
						|
<command>Increase Quota</command> user rights can switch user
 | 
						|
context without giving a password by just calling the usual
 | 
						|
<command>setuid</command>, <command>seteuid</command>,
 | 
						|
<command>setgid</command> and <command>setegid</command> functions.  
 | 
						|
</para>
 | 
						|
<para>
 | 
						|
On NT and Windows 2000 the <systemitem
 | 
						|
class="username">SYSTEM</systemitem> user has these privileges and can
 | 
						|
run services such as <command>sshd</command>. However, on Windows 2003
 | 
						|
<systemitem class="username">SYSTEM</systemitem> lacks the
 | 
						|
<command>Create a token object</command> right, so it is necessary to
 | 
						|
create a special user with all the necessary rights, as
 | 
						|
well as <command>Logon as a service</command>, to run such services.
 | 
						|
For security reasons this user should be denied the rights to logon
 | 
						|
interactively or over the network. All this is done by configuration
 | 
						|
scripts such as <command>ssh-host-config</command>.
 | 
						|
</para>
 | 
						|
<para>
 | 
						|
An important restriction of this method is that a process started
 | 
						|
without a password cannot access network shares which require
 | 
						|
authentication.  This also applies to subprocesses which switched user
 | 
						|
context without a password.  Therefore, when using
 | 
						|
<command>ssh</command> or <command>rsh</command> without a password, it
 | 
						|
is typically not possible to access network drives.
 | 
						|
</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
</sect2>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<sect2 id="ntsec-ids"><title id="ntsec-ids.title">Special values of user and group
 | 
						|
ids</title>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>
 | 
						|
If the current user is not present in <filename>/etc/passwd</filename>,
 | 
						|
that user's user id is set to a special value of 400.  The user name for
 | 
						|
the current user will always be shown correctly.  If another user
 | 
						|
(or a Windows group, treated as a user) is not present in
 | 
						|
<filename>/etc/passwd</filename>, the user id of that user will have a
 | 
						|
special value of -1 (which would be shown by <command>ls</command> as
 | 
						|
65535).  The user name shown in this case will be '????????'.
 | 
						|
</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>
 | 
						|
If the current user is not present in <filename>/etc/passwd</filename>,
 | 
						|
that user's login group id is set to a special value of 401.  If another
 | 
						|
user is not present in <filename>/etc/passwd</filename>, that user's login
 | 
						|
group id is set to a special value of -1.  If the user is present in
 | 
						|
<filename>/etc/passwd</filename>, but that user's group is not in
 | 
						|
<filename>/etc/group</filename> and is not the login group of that user,
 | 
						|
the group id is set to a special value of -1.  The name of this group
 | 
						|
(id -1) will be shown as '????????'.
 | 
						|
In releases of Cygwin before 1.3.20, the group id 401 had a group name
 | 
						|
'None'.  Since Cygwin release 1.3.20, the group id 401 is shown as
 | 
						|
'mkpasswd', indicating the command that should be run to alleviate the
 | 
						|
situation.
 | 
						|
</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>
 | 
						|
Also, since Cygwin release 1.3.20, if the current user is present in
 | 
						|
<filename>/etc/passwd</filename>, but that user's login group is not
 | 
						|
present in <filename>/etc/group</filename>, the group name will be shown
 | 
						|
as 'mkgroup', again indicating the appropriate command.
 | 
						|
</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>To summarize:</para>
 | 
						|
<itemizedlist spacing="compact">
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<listitem><para>If the current user doesn't show up in
 | 
						|
<filename>/etc/passwd</filename>, it's <emphasis>group</emphasis> will
 | 
						|
be named 'mkpasswd'.</para></listitem>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<listitem><para>Otherwise, if the login group of the current user isn't
 | 
						|
in <filename>/etc/group</filename>, it will be named 'mkgroup'.</para>
 | 
						|
</listitem>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<listitem><para>Otherwise a group not in <filename>/etc/group</filename>
 | 
						|
will be shown as '????????' and a user not in
 | 
						|
<filename>/etc/passwd</filename> will be shown as "????????".</para>
 | 
						|
</listitem>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
</itemizedlist>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
<para>
 | 
						|
Note that, since the special user and group names are just indicators,
 | 
						|
nothing prevents you from actually having a user named `mkpasswd' in
 | 
						|
<filename>/etc/passwd</filename> (or a group named `mkgroup' in
 | 
						|
<filename>/etc/group</filename>).  If you do that, however, be aware of
 | 
						|
the possible confusion.
 | 
						|
</para>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
</sect2>
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
</sect1>
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