Xpra: Ticket #1635: insecure umask 0000 on ubuntu server

xterm started on the remote server (via winswitch) runs with umask 0000. This has security impact as files/directories created by users are then world-writable. Expected: some sensible default like 002 or 022.

Version: winswitch 0.12.23-1, xpra 2.1.1-r16658-1 Possible cause: winswitch server assumes umask will be set in /etc/bashrc. That is true on Red Hat derived systems. But it is not true on Ubuntu (tested 16.04 LTS) where I think umask is expected to be set by PAM session (pam_umask.so).

Perhaps related, the PAM file provided by /etc/pam.d/xpra seems to assume a Red Hat style system and most of the PAM modules referenced there do not exist on a Ubuntu system.



Fri, 08 Sep 2017 07:01:02 GMT - Antoine Martin: priority, status, component changed

Ouch. The pam file is only used when we start sessions via the system wide proxy. I assume that the umask is correctly set if we start sessions with --start-via-proxy=no? Best way to fix this is to figure out the correct contents for /etc/pam.d/xpra for all Debian / Ubuntu distributions. Oh, that's going to be fun seeing the complete lack of any clear documentation on the subject.


Sat, 16 Sep 2017 12:02:06 GMT - Antoine Martin: owner, priority, status changed

Just tested on a bunch of Debian distros:

So, although the umask is different, it isn't set to 0000 and is in fact more strict. The pam_umask module is yet another Ubuntu-only thing. I've tried removing system-auth from the /etc/pam.d/xpra file and adding:

@include common-account
@include common-session
@include common-password

The pam open code succeeds but the umask is unchanged after the call. (common session includes: session optional pam_umask.so)

And... that's all I've got time for. It doesn't look like a big problem anyway since the umask is stricter. Hopefully someone who understands what Ubuntu is doing in this area can fix this.


Sun, 01 Oct 2017 10:00:16 GMT - Antoine Martin: status changed; resolution set

Not heard back, closing.


Sat, 23 Jan 2021 05:29:42 GMT - migration script:

this ticket has been moved to: https://github.com/Xpra-org/xpra/issues/1635