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FreeBSD-SA-01:67 Security Advisory
FreeBSD, Inc.
Topic: htdig configuration file vulnerability
Category: ports
Module: htdig
Announced: 2001-12-17
Credits: Rafal Wojtczuk <nergal@7bulls.com>
Affects: Ports collection prior to the correction date
Corrected: 2001-09-25 07:08:47 2001 UTC
FreeBSD only: NO
I. Background
htsearch is a part of htdig. The htdig system is a complete World Wide
Web indexing and searching system.
II. Problem Description
htsearch can be run either remotely as a CGI or from the command line.
htsearch supports several options for use from the command line, such
as an option specifying a configuration file that it should use.
However, these options are not limited to use via the command line.
When run as a CGI script, htsearch still honors these options, which
may be passed as part of the URL. As a result, a remote attacker can
request that htsearch use any file that the webserver has sufficient
privilege to read as a configuration file.
The htsearch port is not installed by default, nor is it "part of
FreeBSD" as such: it is part of the FreeBSD ports collection, which
contains over 6000 third-party applications in a ready-to-install
format. The ports collection shipped with FreeBSD 4.4 contains this
problem since it was discovered after the release.
FreeBSD makes no claim about the security of these third-party
applications, although an effort is underway to provide a security
audit of the most security-critical ports.
III. Impact
A remote attacker may use htsearch as a kind of denial-of-service
attack by causing it to read a never-ending special file such as
`/dev/null'.
More seriously, if the attacker has a local account or can otherwise
create a file on the target system (such as via anonymous FTP upload
or Samba), then he can remotely read any file on the target system for
which the webserver has sufficient privilege.
IV. Workaround
1) Deinstall the htdig port/package if you have it installed.
V. Solution
1) Upgrade your entire ports collection and rebuild the htdig port.
2) Deinstall the old package and install a new package dated after the
correction date, obtained from the following directories:
[i386]
ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-4-stable/textproc/htdig-3.1.5_1.tgz
ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-5-current/textproc/htdig-3.1.5_1.tgz
[alpha]
Packages are not automatically generated for the alpha architecture at
this time due to lack of build resources.
3) Download a new port skeleton for the htdig port from:
http://www.freebsd.org/ports/
and use it to rebuild the port.
4) Use the portcheckout utility to automate option (3) above. The
portcheckout port is available in /usr/ports/devel/portcheckout or the
package can be obtained from:
ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-4-stable/devel/portcheckout-2.0.tgz
ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-5-current/devel/portcheckout-2.0.tgz
VI. Correction details
The following list contains the revision numbers of each file that was
corrected in the FreeBSD ports collection.
Path Revision
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
ports/textproc/htdig/Makefile 1.20
ports/textproc/htdig/file/patch-htsearch_cc 1.1
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
VII. References
<URL:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=104593&aid=458013&group_id=4593>
<URL:
http://www.geocrawler.com/archives/3/8822/2001/9/100/6685429/>
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