On Tue, Aug 01, 2006 at 09:52:34AM -0700, Garth Cummings wrote:
> Hi Jeffrey,
>
> On Aug 1, 2006, at 7:59 AM, Jeffrey Johnson wrote:
> >
> >By "shelling out" we'd be using popen(/bin/ps ....).
>
> Running suid binaries with popen or system is considered a security
> risk as well.
>
One would hope that Apple has taken care of any security problems
that existed in /bin/ps! :)
> If your competitors are getting the process stats the same way you
> are, they'll have to solve the same problem, of course.
>
> The authorization is normally done at install time when the helper
> tool's setuid bit is set. After that, it's just another setuid root
> tool but it only runs if the host process started it.
The fewer setuid root tools that exist, the better. /bin/ps is
already there, and is a pretty solid piece of code that probably doesnt
have a lot of security problems left inside of it. It is a fairly
heavyweight way to find out process status though.
It's unfortunate that progrms like Jeffrey's and mine that previously
did not need any root privileges or setuid helpers now need them, especially
just to do something like find out the status of a process that our
programs spawned - even though we can still kill them, suspend them, and
find out their exit status.
-Erik
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