Re: Wrapper to mount Private directories without root

[David Obadia <dav-ecryptfs@odav.org>]

Tyler Hicks <tyhicks <at> canonical.com> writes:
> On 2012-12-12 16:58:41, David Obadia wrote:
> > Not sure why ecryptfs-recover-private requires root, I've found a way to do 
the
> > same thing without root.
> 
> A quick glance at that script shows that it needs root to do the
> `mount -t ecryptfs ...` command. The main eCryptfs mount helper
> (/sbin/mount.ecryptfs) is big and complex.

Understood, that makes sense. That script might pre-date mount.ecryptfs_private? 
I say this because I was able to achieve the same functionality using only 
mount.ecryptfs_private, not mount.ecryptfs in my Python script.

> > Also I think it would be helpful to have a user friendly API for
> > creating/mounting/unmounting ecrypted folders that doesn't require root 
using
> > the setuid in mount.ecryptfs_private.
> 
> That might be a nice thing to have, but we want mount.ecryptfs_private
> to stay as simple as possible so that it can be audited and so that we
> don't introduce new security flaws into the code. It is intentionally
> locked down to do very specific actions.

Sounds reasonable. Maybe providing a wrapper script gives the best of both 
world? 
1) Minimizes the amount of setuid code that needs to be audited
2) Gives flexibility to the end-user to do as much as can possibly be done, in a 
user-friendly manner, and without requiring root access.

Would be glad to help,
David-