netdev - Re: [PATCH] ethtool: allow non-netadmin to query settings

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:	Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:40:41 -0700
From:	Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@...tta.com>
To:	Ben Hutchings <bhutchings@...arflare.com>
Cc:	David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>,
	Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@...ox.com>, netdev@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] ethtool: allow non-netadmin to query settings

On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 22:24:38 +0100
Ben Hutchings <bhutchings@...arflare.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 2010-08-23 at 13:24 -0700, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> > The SNMP daemon uses ethtool to determine the speed of
> > network interfaces. This fails on Debian (and probably elsewhere)
> > because for security SNMP daemon runs as non-root user (snmp).
> > 
> > Note: A similar patch was rejected previously because of a concern about
> > the possibility that on some hardware querying the ethtool settings
> > requires access to the PHY and could slow the machine down.  But the
> > security risk of requiring SNMP daemon (and related services)
> > to run as root far out weighs the risk of denial-of-service.
> [...]
> 
> Speed and duplex are now exposed through world-readable attributes in
> sysfs.  Currently this is implemented by calling the ethtool
> get_settings() operations but that could be improved on by adding speed
> and duplex fields to struct net_device or by allowing drivers to
> implement a cheaper operation that provides just this information.
> 

Changing daemon is possible, but changing every driver to do this
is not a practical option.
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe netdev" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html