[cvsnt] Re: Patch proposal: $Author substitution with cygwin sshd and RSA keys

Tony Hoyle tmh at nodomain.org
Sat Mar 20 02:02:21 GMT 2004


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Markus Kuehni wrote:

> Background:
> Cygwin sshd seems to use a "imperfect" Windows impersonation when using RSA
> key authentication so cvsnt still gets "SYSTEM" when calling GetUserName()
> in win32getlogin(). 
> The patch tells getcaller() routine to use the $LOGNAME or $USER environment
> variable if getlogin() which calls win32getlogin() returns "SYSTEM". 
> According to its description, getcaller() is only used for non-critical
> stuff such as the $Author substitution. So the patch should in no way affect
> security. On the other hand, maybe it would even be save to patch
> win32getlogin() generally.

It's better to patch win32getlogin as it's a win32 specific problem.
I like the idea of checking for "SYSTEM" as it's better than previous solutions.

> BTW, does the "imperfect impersonation" of sshd otherwise adversely affect
> cvsnt operation?

I'm not sure.  From a CVSNT point of view it's what we used to use all the time
anyway (still do on NT4).  However  99% certain it won't work in Win2003, and
possibly not in XP SP2 (I've only tested in Win2003 and was unable to get it to
work - the CreateToken privilege is now reserved for a very limited subset of processes).

http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=g6ppev8pvl1q2e95c4ma7sgaabrr52n6ov%404ax.com

Tony



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