"core dump helper" runs always as root

[Christian Perle <chris@linuxinfotag.de>]

Hi *

I recently played around with the /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern file
(2.6.24.7 and 2.6.25) and found out that processes started by the
"|/path/to/executable" notation always run as root, even if the
segfaulting process runs as non-root.

Is there a reason for this behaviour? If not, i would suggest starting the
process which receives the core dump on stdin as the same UID of the
segfaulting process.

With the current behaviour you can do funny things:

(as root)
# echo "|/bin/chmod 4755 /bin/ash" > /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern

(as user)
$ sleep 2 & kill -11 $!

Of course this is *not* a local root exploit because you need to be root
to write to the proc entry, but IMHO running the "core dump helper" (is
there a better name for this?) always as root is potentially harmful.


Greetings,
  Chris
-- 
Christian Perle                                    chris AT linuxinfotag.de
010111                                              http://chris.silmor.de/
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