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The first stable release of a memory safe sudo implementation

memorysafety.org

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Re: The first stable release of a memory safe sudo implementation

#61

Post by narinxas »

coggs wrote: post #60

As one of the original creators of sudo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudo ) I've witnessed it getting nearly totally rewritten and then incrementally bug-fixed over the last 43 years. It must take the prize for the UNIX command most highly-scrutinized for security flaws. Flaws which have been identified and fixed. Thousands of developers and security experts have gone over it. So part of me wonders - how is it pos…

> Is there something to this Rust language which magically eliminates all chances of any bug being introduced?

apperently, yes... and its the type system, but granted

it's only 'memory safety' bugs... the kind of error that C languages are really suceptible to.

Re: The first stable release of a memory safe sudo implementation

#62

Post by cpach »

samus wrote: post #29
mprovost wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenBSD replaced sudo with doas (with a vastly reduced feature set) several years ago, and without breaking everything. Sure there are use cases where you absolutely need some feature of sudo, but you can always install it.

OpenBSD is much more open (pun not intended!) about breaking parts of userspace to push through beneficial changes. After all, they control their own userspace and can fix up most things before they even become an issue. Linux is only the kernel.

In that case, shouldn’t Linux distros be even more free to break things…? In theory they can bundle any userland tools they want.

AFAIK sudo isn’t really tightly coupled to the kernel itself.

Re: The first stable release of a memory safe sudo implementation

#63

Post by oynqr »

tsimionescu wrote: post #40
mhh__ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general a lot of "[GNU tool] but in rust" projects do seem to come very close to violating the GPL, especially in spirit.

In what sense? It is completely in the spirit of the GPL to reimplement a GPL tool from scratch with the same behavior and a different license. After all, that's how the free Unixes came about (though admittedly those were BSD licensed typically).

Pretty sure you'd have to clean room the whole thing. Which these Rust implementation might not have. This is not legal advice.

Re: The first stable release of a memory safe sudo implementation

#64

Post by noahjk »

coggs wrote: post #60

As one of the original creators of sudo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudo ) I've witnessed it getting nearly totally rewritten and then incrementally bug-fixed over the last 43 years. It must take the prize for the UNIX command most highly-scrutinized for security flaws. Flaws which have been identified and fixed. Thousands of developers and security experts have gone over it. So part of me wonders - how is it pos…

On the surface, sudo seems fairly straightforward, so it’s interesting to hear how much work has gone into it! Do you have any interesting facts or anecdotes you’d care to share?

Re: The first stable release of a memory safe sudo implementation

#65

Post by nolok »

noahjk wrote: post #64
coggs wrote: post #60

As one of the original creators of sudo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudo ) I've witnessed it getting nearly totally rewritten and then incrementally bug-fixed over the last 43 years. It must take the prize for the UNIX command most highly-scrutinized for security flaws. Flaws which have been identified and fixed. Thousands of developers and security experts have gone over it. So part of me wonders - how is it pos…

On the surface, sudo seems fairly straightforward, so it’s interesting to hear how much work has gone into it! Do you have any interesting facts or anecdotes you’d care to share?

The key is in "on the surface". While the common usage of sudo is fairly straightforward, you me and most people use like 5% of it. The trick is in all the side shows.

Re: The first stable release of a memory safe sudo implementation

#66

Post by coggs »

noahjk wrote: post #64
coggs wrote: post #60

As one of the original creators of sudo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudo ) I've witnessed it getting nearly totally rewritten and then incrementally bug-fixed over the last 43 years. It must take the prize for the UNIX command most highly-scrutinized for security flaws. Flaws which have been identified and fixed. Thousands of developers and security experts have gone over it. So part of me wonders - how is it pos…

On the surface, sudo seems fairly straightforward, so it’s interesting to hear how much work has gone into it! Do you have any interesting facts or anecdotes you’d care to share?

Hackaday interviewed me about the origin story - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaAwl3HN5ds&ab_channel=HACKA...

Re: The first stable release of a memory safe sudo implementation

#67

Post by nolok »

coggs wrote: post #60

As one of the original creators of sudo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudo ) I've witnessed it getting nearly totally rewritten and then incrementally bug-fixed over the last 43 years. It must take the prize for the UNIX command most highly-scrutinized for security flaws. Flaws which have been identified and fixed. Thousands of developers and security experts have gone over it. So part of me wonders - how is it pos…

In memory safety ? Yes, the language is much better at being safe by default. But it does nothing for logics bugs.

The thing is, replacing from C (sudo or anything else), the number of exploit due to null pointer or buffer abuse or ... represent easily 50% of it.

Re: The first stable release of a memory safe sudo implementation

#68

Post by jchw »

coggs wrote: post #60

As one of the original creators of sudo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudo ) I've witnessed it getting nearly totally rewritten and then incrementally bug-fixed over the last 43 years. It must take the prize for the UNIX command most highly-scrutinized for security flaws. Flaws which have been identified and fixed. Thousands of developers and security experts have gone over it. So part of me wonders - how is it pos…

Advanced type systems and borrow checking/memory safe languages DO go a long way, but obviously, No. The best developers can do pulling a RiiR is try to follow best practices and learn from past mistakes. We've certainly come a long way in 43 years. Ditching C string handling eliminates a ton of bugs before you factor in the memory safety. Heck, you have to admit: someone setting out to make a secure sudo replacement could do a lot better nowadays even using just C. The OpenBSD project does a pretty good job demonstrating this imo. If you make a programming language that doesn't have many of the sharp edges OpenBSD code avoids, you could probably get yourself a head start, but clearly it also is going to take plenty of care and experience too, and a programming language can't really grant you that.

I think it's at least worth humoring. It probably shouldn't be shipping as a default any time soon, though...

Re: The first stable release of a memory safe sudo implementation

#69

Post by alexvitkov »

coggs wrote: post #60

As one of the original creators of sudo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudo ) I've witnessed it getting nearly totally rewritten and then incrementally bug-fixed over the last 43 years. It must take the prize for the UNIX command most highly-scrutinized for security flaws. Flaws which have been identified and fixed. Thousands of developers and security experts have gone over it. So part of me wonders - how is it pos…

[flagged]

Re: The first stable release of a memory safe sudo implementation

#70

Post by Denvercoder9 »

Zardoz84 wrote: post #30
hpb42 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of those left out features is `sudoedit` or `sudo -e`. I use this a lot when editing files in /etc or any file that my user does not have permissions. The flag first copies the file to a temporary location with permissions for my user to edit, then opens my text editor (defined via $SUDO_EDITOR env var) as _my user_, without any sudo permissions. After I close the editor, the file is copied back with the original…

I usully use "sudo -E EDITOR_OF_MY_CHOICE"

That makes your editor run as root, which is a bad idea for many reasons (aside from security, any mistake now has the potential mess with the whole system).
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