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Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

trifectatech.org

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Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#61

Post by tialaramex »

homefree wrote: post #11
ndegruchy wrote: post #6

Seems like the trifecta group is /just/ about migrating tools to rust? Am I understanding that right? I don't have a problem with it, specifically. Seems odd that they don't advertise it, though.

[flagged]

Politics is just everything. "No politics" usually means, "Opinions which conflict with mine are unwelcome" or at best the small-C conservative idea that the status quo has existed forever and so whatever happens to presently be the case is just how things should be.

In your own comment you mention "actually the best outcome" but that's a matter of politics, doubtless you have different ideas about what "best" would be than I do, and I appreciate that perhaps you've never considered that anybody other than you could be right, but you might want to take a moment to think again.

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#62

Post by dev_l1x_be »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #19
dev_l1x_be wrote: post #17

doas is a much simpler (and therefore better) alternative.

doas is not a compatible drop-in replacement for existing users.

I did not claim that.

Here is my doas config:

    cat /etc/doas.conf
    permit nopass jane as root
It be read and understood without prior knowledge.

Sudo: #ALL ALL = (root) NOPASSWD: C_ZFS

I have no idea what is going here, not sure what ALL means, why root is in (), etc.

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#63

Post by 778464636 »

davrosthedalek wrote: post #50
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Memory safety is strictly a good thing, regardless of motivations. But I'm aware that some people are frightened of new languages and paradigms especially if they're 'harder' than what they're used to.

Only if you don't buy any downsides with it. That makes it situational dependent. For example: - less people being able to read the code, work with the code, find (security) bugs - slower I know, I know, rust is not really slower, and for sudo it probably wouldn't even matter. But safety isn't the be all and end all of software. There is a lot of software out there where memory safety doesn't matter, or matters a lot…

Supply chain attacks is a big downside no one ever mentions. Even sudo-rs drags dependencies in from Github at build time instead of being self-contained, which is just an absurd thing to do for such an essential tool, especially in the current political climate.

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#64

Post by a_t48 »

charcircuit wrote: post #58
jvanderbot wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those will also have to be fixed/considered, but do not detract from the contribution of removing memory safety bugs which may enable exploits.

This is a case of doubling down on bad design. To me it's wasted effort preventing theoretical bugs in niche setups.

Even with a new, perfect paradigm, there would be billions of systems running sudo for years.

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#65

Post by jcalvinowens »

Analemma_ wrote: post #28
mid-kid wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've accepted it at this point, but I wonder if the religious element of GNU tools and free software in general was as contentious way back when.

A little while ago I realized with a start that it's been years since I've heard anyone angrily insist on calling it "GNU/Linux", when that was constant background noise during the Slashdot era. One of those old fights that just faded away, I guess.

Its more that it ceased to be true: you can build a "nognu" Linux now, with LLVM as the system compiler, and musl/libc++ instead of glibc/libstdc++.

https://distfiles.gentoo.org/releases/amd64/autobuilds/curre...

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#66

Post by im3w1l »

charcircuit wrote: post #27
MajesticHobo2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but now the vector for privilege escalation will have to be a logic bug in memory-safe sudo instead of either a memory corruption (see CVE-2021-3156) or a logic bug. It’s hard not to see this as a major improvement.

Being a setuid binary means that sudo also suffers from attacks where an attacker runs `sudo ./malware` and then convinces the user to authenticate. Depending on how sudo authenticates phishing attacks or password reuse from another breach can be used to escalate privileges.

I don't think you can realistically enforce a security boundary between root, and a user account that occasionally elevates.

You can enforce a boundary between root and an account that never elevates though. And as far as I understand hardening sudo helps with that.

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#67

Post by 778464636 »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #19
dev_l1x_be wrote: post #17

doas is a much simpler (and therefore better) alternative.

doas is not a compatible drop-in replacement for existing users.

Neither is sudo-rs. From TFA:

> some features of the original sudo will not be implemented in sudo-rs if they serve only highly niche use cases

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#68

Post by atoav »

homefree wrote: post #11
ndegruchy wrote: post #6

Seems like the trifecta group is /just/ about migrating tools to rust? Am I understanding that right? I don't have a problem with it, specifically. Seems odd that they don't advertise it, though.

[flagged]

The comment you responded to says: "Seems odd that they don't advertise it [the usage of Rust], though."

Isn't not advertising a language the polar opposite of being religious about a language?

I am all for a memory safe sudo and I don't care which language it is written in, use C, Ada, Rust, as long as it is a suitable systems programming language understood by a community of developers and you can proof memory safety to an acceptable degree. If the people first to do it in an such an way happen to use Rust, not accepting that based purely on the language is what would sound religious to me..

Maybe this protectionist reaction (see recent drama within the Linux kernel) is every bit as religiously colored as some people claim Rust people are.

I mean memory safety? What comes next? Not allowing us to use after free like true men would? \s

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#70

Post by jvanderbot »

charcircuit wrote: post #58
jvanderbot wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those will also have to be fixed/considered, but do not detract from the contribution of removing memory safety bugs which may enable exploits.

This is a case of doubling down on bad design. To me it's wasted effort preventing theoretical bugs in niche setups.

I think the opposing view is that moving away from sudo is substantially more effort and would break basically everything to accomplish "the same" thing as robustifying sudo (for some very loose definition of "same")
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