7755829 2002-01-06 05:35 +0100  /31 rader/ Tozz <tozz@embrace.selwerd.nl>
Sänt av: joel@lysator.liu.se
Importerad: 2002-01-07  08:57  av Brevbäraren
Extern mottagare: bugtraq@securityfocus.com
Mottagare: Bugtraq (import) <20384>
Ärende: Denial of Service flaw in Apache
------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Tozz" <tozz@embrace.selwerd.nl>
To: <bugtraq@securityfocus.com>
Message-ID: <001101c1966b$89897a80$bd00a8c0@poesje>

Hello,

Today I stumbled on a little issue in Apache. My webhosting company
creates log files for each seperate user/domain, so every user is
able to download his own access / error logs.

The problem occures when the log directory does not exists, when
apache receives a SIGHUP (e.g. logrotate)Apache will reload its
config file and shutdown immediatly.  So, if the log directory is
removed by the owner of the domain by accident or because he just
wanted to clean up some logs :), apache will just simply shutdown
upon a SIGHUP.

Apache only seems to do this with log files, if a DocumentRoot does
not exist it will just start and display a 404. Same for a
ScriptAlias or anything else that uses a directory.

It's not really a bug, because you can just set the owner of the log
directory to UID root, but still I think it's weird that Apache only
dies with a log directory and not with any other directory..

Bye,
Tozz
Visit us: #h4h @ irc.rizenet.org
(7755829) /Tozz <tozz@embrace.selwerd.nl>/(Ombruten)
7760948 2002-01-07 07:14 -0800  /37 rader/ Marc Slemko <marcs@znep.com>
Sänt av: joel@lysator.liu.se
Importerad: 2002-01-07  23:20  av Brevbäraren
Extern mottagare: Tozz <tozz@embrace.selwerd.nl>
Extern kopiemottagare: bugtraq@securityfocus.com
Mottagare: Bugtraq (import) <20407>
Kommentar till text 7755829 av Tozz <tozz@embrace.selwerd.nl>
Ärende: Re: Denial of Service flaw in Apache
------------------------------------------------------------
From: Marc Slemko <marcs@znep.com>
To: Tozz <tozz@embrace.selwerd.nl>
Cc: bugtraq@securityfocus.com
Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.20.0201070708190.383-100000@alive.znep.com>

On Sun, 6 Jan 2002, Tozz wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> Today I stumbled on a little issue in Apache. My webhosting company creates
> log files for each seperate user/domain, so every user is able to download
> his own access / error logs.

[...etc etc etc...]

I will tell you the same thing that I told you when you sent the
same thing to security@apache.org:

The documentation explicitly states that you must not allow
non-trusted users write access to the logs directory.  It is a major
security hole because they are opened by the user that starts apache
(ie. normally root).  This is a done this way on purpose, however it
requires that the server not be misconfigured.  If you have a setup
where a random user can write to a logs directory, then you have a
hell of a lot more to worry about than them causing the server to not
start!

Having a non-existant log directory is considered a major
configuration error, and it is not appropriate for Apache to blindly
continue on trying to guess what it should do (and possibly not
logging anything).

Also, note that it is NOT only missing log directories that will cause
Apache to fail to startup correctly, there are any number of major
configuration errors that will cause it to do the same thing.  On
purpose.
(7760948) /Marc Slemko <marcs@znep.com>/--(Ombruten)