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Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

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Re: Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

#31

Why not use rootless podman? It is 2026 not 2016, Podman works much better than Docker today.

because the distro is all about convenience over security, while selling an aura of technical superiority. Which is the modus operandi that worked for the distro author in the past, when he sold VPS with a big markup, because he also gave a script that did "ssh vps -- curl somebashscript" to do basic webdev taks.

> The security tradeoff was made for them, applied to the default account, and the tradeoff was not explained to the user.

just like the vps era. it's all about convenience.

Re: Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

#32
post #18

I was expecting a more sophisticated attack and then I scrolled down… > Omarchy configured its default user as a member of the Linux docker group. What the fuck? Docker makes it VERY, VERY clear this is unsafe. Feel free to verify the documentation. https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/linux-postinstall/ Why would you want to make this the default for your users, without even telling them? Did someone configured hi…

Because it's convenient, and the security of this doesn't matter for desktop usage.

[deleted]

Re: Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

#33
Linux isn't like macOS, it doesn't have any kind of proper desktop sandboxing architecture that really works. So this is kind of security theatre. If you run a malicious program it can do stuff like tamper with your PATH or exploit local vulns in apps to get to the point where it can control anything that matters (which root generally doesn't). For instance it can just drop a custom shell into ~/.bin/.hidden-shell and reconfigure the terminal emulator to run it.

So this kind of "vulnerability" doesn't seem that important. If you run code as yourself on Linux it owns you.

On macOS it's very different. Pervasive code signing gives all apps a stable identity enforced by the kernel that they can't easily escape. The kernel can then impose sandboxing policies on any app that's run regardless of how it's installed, for instance, preventing apps from rummaging through ~/Documents or monitoring your screen. Permissions are editable and guaranteed to stick, including across upgrades. And root is disempowered so obtaining it barely matters, it's only really there for UNIX compatibility.

Unfortunately implementing an Apple style architecture on Linux would be very difficult.

Re: Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

#34
I hate to be defending Omarchy but I think for the modern desktop OS like Linux or Windows or Mac OS, "root" is not what it used to be.

Like if I have something on my dev machines which is important from an enterprise perspective it is the credentials that I use to check things into the git repository or log into the postgresql database that are in some file or keyring or the credentials I used to log into some corporate IT system with my web browser. Or the Microsoft Word document with confidential plans, or the spreadsheet with personal data on 30,000 people that I don't really need to have, etc.

The "root" barrier is of limited effectiveness against those sort of attacks but the barrier between users is less important on a personal computer as opposed to the "minicomputer" world that gave birth to Unix.

In 1989 my school had a cluster of Sun Workstations running Unix for which student, faculty, and staff had accounts and it was a real threat model that you might steal the homework assignment of another student or you might take screenshots of the screen of the computer center's director that would let you watch him reading his email his email and such.

I more concerned that Apache is running under a "httpd" account or IIS is running under its own account so that I do have controls on what can be exfiltrated by that route but...

The modern developer is likely booting up a sinatra or JAXB or a httpx server on some high numbered port running as their own user so if they're going to get hit with data exfiltration or remote execution against a dev server the scope is most user files.

Re: Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

#36

I think people shouldn't just jump to distros which are getting heavily hyped in media/Youtube, cachyOS had similar wave, and now Omarchy does. (example: NetworkChuck, Primeagen? and a few others) also, archlinux is much easier to install nowadays with archinstall [1], so i'm not sure you really need another opinionated layer on top of it [1] - https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Archinstall

Just use Fedora. It just werks (most times).

Re: Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

#37

Linux isn't like macOS, it doesn't have any kind of proper desktop sandboxing architecture that really works. So this is kind of security theatre. If you run a malicious program it can do stuff like tamper with your PATH or exploit local vulns in apps to get to the point where it can control anything that matters (which root generally doesn't). For instance it can just drop a custom shell into ~/.bin/.hidden-shell an…

> it doesn't have any kind of proper desktop sandboxing architecture that really works.

Bubblewrap works.

Re: Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

#38

Linux isn't like macOS, it doesn't have any kind of proper desktop sandboxing architecture that really works. So this is kind of security theatre. If you run a malicious program it can do stuff like tamper with your PATH or exploit local vulns in apps to get to the point where it can control anything that matters (which root generally doesn't). For instance it can just drop a custom shell into ~/.bin/.hidden-shell an…

> Unfortunately implementing an Apple style architecture on Linux would be very difficult.

On desktop Linux as we know it, yes, but Android manages it alright, mostly via SELinux+seccomp.

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