6058622 2001-02-06 17:00 -0500  /105 rader/ Mark Krenz <mkrenz@KIVA.NET>
Sänt av: joel@lysator.liu.se
Importerad: 2001-02-07  00:31  av Brevbäraren (som är implementerad i) Python
Extern mottagare: BUGTRAQ@SECURITYFOCUS.COM
Externa svar till: mkrenz@KIVA.NET
Mottagare: Bugtraq (import) <15267>
Ärende: Security hole in ChiliSoft ASP on Linux.
------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mark Krenz <mkrenz@KIVA.NET>
To: BUGTRAQ@SECURITYFOCUS.COM
Message-ID: <20010206170007.B19941@jerkweed.kiva.net>

Security hole in ChiliSoft ASP for Linux.

 Overview:

  ASP (Active Server Pages) are a technology initially developed by
Microsoft to tackle the "dynamic content on the web" problem.
Chili!Soft is a company that has released a piece of software called
Chili!Soft ASP that makes ASP functionality available on other
operating systems and webservers, such as Linux, Solaris and AIX,
HP-UX, Apache, iPlanet, Lotus Domino and O'Reilly Website Pro.

 Synopsis:

  Under Un*x systems you can set the ChiliSoft ASP (CASP) daemon to
run in one of two different security modes.  The first one is defined
mode, where you specify that the daemon be started as root and then
run as the user you specify in the casp.cnfg configuration file.  As
an example, this mode would be useful on a company who runs their own
webserver and uses one single user to own all their web content.

  The second mode that CASP can be run in is inherited mode.  In this
mode, the server is started by root and inherits the user and group
information from each virtual host in the Apache webserver.  So if a
virtual domain called www.xyz.org was setup under Apache with the
directives "User john" and "Group vhttp", any script run in that
domain's webspace would run as the user john and the group vhttp.
And thus the scripts would be restricted to accessing files based
on the access allowed to that user and group.  This is useful for
ISPs that have webservers that are shared by many different virtual
domain customers.

 Problem:

  While running CASP in the inherited security mode, none of the ASP
scripts running under a user's virtual webspace inherit the group
that is specified with the Group directive in the domain's virtual
host container.  So while the scripts end up running as the user
specified with the User directive, they end up running as group root.
This kinda defeats the whole purpose of inherited mode and is a major
security problem.

 Affected systems:

  I tested and confirmed this problem on a RedHat Linux 6.2 machine
running RedHat SecureWebServer 3.2.1, which is basically Apache 1.3.9
with mod_ssl.  I am unable to test this on Solaris or any other Un*x
platform so I'm unsure if the problem exists on other OSes.
Chili!Soft didn't specify whether the problem existed on other
platforms.

 Solutions:

  Chili!Soft informed me that this problem is fixed in their upcoming
3.6 release of Chili!Soft ASP which they claim is due out in the first
quarter of 2001.

  A temporary solution might be to change your security mode to
defined user mode by setting inherit_user=0 and specifying a user and
group to run as in the casp.cnfg file.


 History:

  For a few days after I setup ChiliSoft ASP I was trying to figure out
why inherited user mode wasn't working.   I was testing it's ability to
run in inherited mode by creating an ASP script that read a file mode 644
in root's home directory (the directory is mode 750 owned root.root).  I
figured that this was a good real situation to test whether the inheritance
was working or not.  I later tried to read another file in the same directory
with permissions that restricted the root group (mode 600) from reading
the file.  That's when I realized that it was inheriting the root group,
which was enabling it to get through to the root directory.

  I then went to Chili!Soft's support
forum(http://www.chilisoft.com/forum/) to look for other instances
where this problem might have been mentioned.  I found none so I
posted my own message to their forum explaining the problem.  After
waiting a half a day and receiving no response to my message on their
forum I wrote to their tech support address with a duplicate copy of
the message that I posted to their support forum.  I received this
response the same day from eval@chilisoft.com:

> This is a known issue with the software, and has been addressed in the
> upcoming 3.6 round of releases.  This is due on both Solaris and Linux
> this quarter.  We're in QA at this point, and this particular issue has
> been resolved.  Thank you for your interest in our product.

  I wrote them back and explained that this is a big security issue
and should be resolved quickly and that if they knew about the
problem they should have notified customers of the problem.  They
have only written me back since stating that the current release must
go through many tests in Quality Assurance before they can release it
to the public.

  It has now been a week since I initially notified Chili!Soft of the
problem.  There has been no real solution, so I'm posting to BugTraq.

--
 mark.krenz
 mkrenz@kiva.net
________________________________________________________________________
Hey, did ya know something's beeping in the machine room?
(6058622) --------------------------------(Ombruten)
Kommentar i text 6058834 av Gonzo Granzeau <gonzo@GRANZEAU.COM>
6058834 2001-02-06 18:32 -0600  /26 rader/ Gonzo Granzeau <gonzo@GRANZEAU.COM>
Sänt av: joel@lysator.liu.se
Importerad: 2001-02-07  03:41  av Brevbäraren (som är implementerad i) Python
Extern mottagare: BUGTRAQ@SECURITYFOCUS.COM
Externa svar till: gonzo@GRANZEAU.COM
Mottagare: Bugtraq (import) <15272>
Kommentar till text 6058622 av Mark Krenz <mkrenz@KIVA.NET>
Ärende: Re: Security hole in ChiliSoft ASP on Linux.
------------------------------------------------------------
From: Gonzo Granzeau <gonzo@GRANZEAU.COM>
To: BUGTRAQ@SECURITYFOCUS.COM
Message-ID: <20010206183246.C4640@granzeau.com>

	On Tue, Feb 06, 2001 at 05:00:07PM -0500,
Mark Krenz <mkrenz@KIVA.NET> rambled:
>  Affected systems:
>
>   I tested and confirmed this problem on a RedHat Linux 6.2 machine
> running RedHat SecureWebServer 3.2.1, which is basically Apache 1.3.9
> with mod_ssl.  I am unable to test this on Solaris or any other Un*x
> platform so I'm unsure if the problem exists on other OSes.  Chili!Soft
> didn't specify whether the problem existed on other platforms.

All cobalt boxes that come with Chili!Soft have it on by default.
But they are not affected by this bug as the inherit_user is off by
default: /home/chiliasp/admin/bin/casp.cnfg:inherit_user=0

(For those using the great line of Cobalt products.)

gonzo
--
Gonzo Granzeau | gonzo@granzeau.com | feed me the stray cat.
'You're no one til someone hates you' -Snake River Conspiracy
(6058834) --------------------------------(Ombruten)