[Discuss] Program path maintenance and security (was Re: Debian 12 vs. WSL 1)

Rich Pieri richard.pieri at gmail.com
Thu Jun 22 17:26:59 EDT 2023


On Thu, 22 Jun 2023 15:07:19 -0500
Derek Martin <invalid at pizzashack.org> wrote:

> 1. As I indicated in the other message, if the program is intended to
>    run exclusively in the security context of the user running it, and
>    does not at any point require elevated privileges (which needs to
>    be evaluated carefully), then using /usr/bin/env is PROBABLY fine,
>    particularly if you wrote it and know what it does.

You list three "ifs" around using env. Explicit path to /usr/bin/perl or
whatever has zero "ifs". I leave it to the reader to decide which is
more reliable and secure, and preferable for their environments.

>    BUT: the onus is on the user running the perl script to make sure

I correct myself: four "ifs".

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\m/ (--) \m/


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