[gfarm-discuss:17242] Re: Gfarm version 2.0.0 released

[Osamu Tatebe <tatebe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Wilfred and Soda-san,

Yes.  Most critical issue in Gfarm v1 is unsufficient
protection of file system metadata.  You can find these
issues in KNOWN_PROBLEMS.en document.

http://gfarm.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/gfarm/gfarm/trunk/doc/KNOWN_PROBLEMS.en?revision=3688&view=markup

Below are some excerpts from the document, which are solved
in v2.  Also, v1 allows everyone to create files or
directores in the root directory, which is solved in v2.
Moreover, Gfarm v1 does not protect physical files
stored in a spool directory on a file system node enough,
which is solved in v2.

- There is no "privileged user".

  Because of this problem, operations which require such privileges
  aren't implemented.  For example, there is no way to change the owner of
  a file

- gfarm_agent doesn't perform client authentication.

  gfarm_agent reads and writes metadata to cache it.
  This means any user who can reach gfarm_agent via a network, can modify
  any metadata, if gfarm is configured to use gfarm_agent.

- Filesystem metadata isn't really protected on a per-user basis.

  Any filesystem metadata can be modified by any user simply by bypassing
  checks in the gfarm library and accessing LDAP or the PostgreSQL server
  directly, if the user is a legitimate gfarm user.
  This only applies to users who can access gfarm.conf, because
  access to the LDAP and PostgreSQL servers is protected by
  a password written in the gfarm.conf file.

- Host metadata isn't really protected on a per-user basis.

  Any host metadata can be modified by any user, if the user is
  a legitimate gfarm user.

Thanks,
Osamu

On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 04:22:08 +0900
SODA Noriyuki <soda@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> >>>>> On Wed, 28 Nov 2007 10:57:04 -0800, "Wilfred Li" <wilfred@xxxxxxxx> said:
> 
> > Could you please also provide a description of the security improvements
> > in v2?
> 
> I think he meant problems which had been described in
> the KNOWN_PROBLEMS.en file in the gfarm v1 distribution.
> -- 
> soda