Re: Is /tmp still appropriate? (was Re: [hacksware]Pine temporary file hijacking vulnerability)

[Kurt Seifried <listuser () seifried org>]

> I'm not sure how easy it'd be to implement (3), but how about:
>
> 1) /stmp/<<username>> as a temp directory for that user. rwx for
>    the user only, of course.

advantage over $TMP? I suppose if for some _weird_ reason /home/username/ isn't accessible or something....

> 2) utilities should respect TEMP_DIR, which would be set in
>    /etc/profile to /stmp/<<username>>

Many do, some distro's even do this by default, I think this is the best solution long term.

> 3) For migration purposes, a virtual filesystem that maps
>    /tmp to /stmp/<<username>> After all utilities are migrated,
>    one would get rid of this (and /tmp) forever.

Oh god. you aren't serious. That seems like a really good way to ensure people don't ever bother to fix the code (why 
should I, this
/stmp will remap, what do Ihave to worry about?).

> Seems to me we'd have a lot less /tmp exploits ;-)

If programmers used sane tmp file creation.... If I had a million dollars.... If Florida hadn't used punchcards, well 
you get the
idea =)

BTW for monitoring tmp this is useful:
http://www.l0pht.com/hotnews1999-1.html
http://www.L0pht.com/advisories/l0pht-watch.tar.gz



Kurt Seifried, seifried () securityportal com
SecurityPortal - your focal point for security on the 'net