Programming

Hi all,

I've search the forums regarding posts similar to this already but can't find the suitable response. Am actually looking for something very trivial I think. I just want to mask/obfuscate the a.out file and run it like a normal UNIX program. I've look at gpg and encryption but it requires a pass phrase which is not possible if I want to run the program via a cron job.

Any advise will be very much appreciated. Note that the code below is just an example. I suppose am looking for someting like a Base64 encoder/decoder kind of thing that some PHP sites uses so that the PHP codes are still runnable but the visitors does not see the actual PHP codes.

Thanks in advance.

Code:

#include<stdio.h>

main()
{
   /* system("monitor_standby_physical.sh"); */

  system("sqlplus system/oracle@test");
}

strings a.out:

Code:

/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2
_Jv_RegisterClasses
__gmon_start__
libc.so.6
system
__libc_start_main
GLIBC_2.2.5
sqlplus system/oracle@test

Put that in the oracle crontab, place a.out (owned by oracle) with 700 protections in an oracle owned directory. Embedded passwords in code are always a problem.

Another choice is embed an encrypted passwd and decode it during runtime. And as long as the executable is in a protected directory with correct protections it will be reasonably safe.

If the oracle directory tree is wide open, you have so many other security problems, this one doesn't matter.

You can also build the string one character at a time:

Code:

    char command[ 28 ];
    command[ 0 ] = 's';
    command[ 1 ] = 'q';
        .
        .
        .
    command[ 27 ] = '\0';

Of course, anyone on the server who runs a "ps" command will see your password anyway....

Good point...though, I'm not the OP...so maybe that doesn't matter to him. I wonder if you can restrict ps somehow....?

If your system supports acl's you can limit ps that way. Or put users in a chroot jail.

Basically, if you want to protect an application password the way the OP wants to use one, you really should not let users get to the unix prompt.