WebApp secure access to protected files/programs Post: 302504322

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Special Forums Cybersecurity WebApp secure access to protected files/programs Post 302504322 by salukibob on Monday 14th of March 2011 10:10:13 AM

03-14-2011

Registered User

WebApp secure access to protected files/programs

Hello,

I'm working on an embedded linux project that provides a devices that uses an IPSec VPN (using racoon) to connect back to base. The device also hosts a WebApp that allows admin users to change many aspect of the networking setup, including things like the VPN pre-shared-key, IP addresses and user passwords. This requires the WebApp to be able to access protected files such as /etc/network/interfaces, and racoons psk.txt as well as programs such as usermod.

My question is, what is the best and most secure method of accessing these protected files from the WebApp code?

The WebApp is running through lighttpd, and uses php for the server-side scripting. Currently, php code calls shell scripts (using exec() ) outside of the document-root that then access the files. The shell scripts are owned by the webapp user, and use sudo to access protected files and programs. This requires the webapp user to have permissions in the sudoers files for programs such as cp, cat, and usermod. All of which I believe make this a very insecure system. The only other choice I thought was to setuid the shell scripts.

What would be the normal method of accomplishing such things for a web application? Any advice on a secure method of doing this would be most appreciated.

Thanks very much
Rob

salukibob

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LEARN ABOUT OPENDARWIN

racoon

RACOON(8)						    BSD System Manager's Manual 						 RACOON(8)

NAME

     racoon -- IKE (ISAKMP/Oakley) key management daemon

SYNOPSIS

     racoon [-BdFv46] [-f configfile] [-l logfile] [-p isakmp-port]

DESCRIPTION

     racoon speaks IKE (ISAKMP/Oakley) key management protocol, to establish security association with other hosts.  SPD (Security Policy
     Database) in the kernel usually triggers to start racoon.	racoon usually sends all of informational messages, warnings and error messages to
     syslogd(8) with the facility LOG_DAEMON, the priority LOG_INFO.  Debugging messages are sent with the priority LOG_DEBUG.	You should config-
     ure syslog.conf(5) appropriately to see these messages.

     -B      Install SA(s) from the file which is specified in racoon.conf(5).

     -d      Increase the debug level.	Multiple -d will increase the debug level even more.

     -F      Run racoon in the foreground.

     -f configfile
	     Use configfile as the configuration file instead of the default.

     -l logfile
	     Use logfile as the logging file instead of syslogd(8).

     -p isakmp-port
	     Listen to ISAKMP key exchange on port isakmp-port instead of the default port number, 500.

     -v      The flag causes the packet dump be more verbose, with higher debugging level.

     -4

     -6      Specifies the default address family for the sockets.

     racoon assumes the presence of kernel random number device rnd(4) at /dev/urandom.  Informational messages are labeled info, and debugging
     messages are labeled debug.  You have to configure syslog.conf(5) if you want to see them in a logging file.

RETURN VALUES

     The command exits with 0 on success, and non-zero on errors.

FILES

     /usr/local/v6/etc/racoon.conf  default configuration file.

SEE ALSO

     ipsec(4), racoon.conf(5), syslog.conf(5), setkey(8), syslogd(8)

HISTORY

     The racoon command first appeared in ``YIPS'' Yokogawa IPsec implementation.

KAME
								 November 20, 2000							      KAME