Add utility functions to get name of GNU tar executable in OS-agnostic manner #276
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poneill
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akotlar,
cristinaetrv and
austinTalbot7241993
akotlar
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Sep 28, 2023
python/python/bystro/utils/tar.py
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| # here and throughout, fully qualify executable names to avoid privilege escalation | ||
| GNU_TAR_LINUX = "/usr/bin/tar" |
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Can we use something like which to locate this? I'm not sure what privilege escalation is possible with that approach, please help me understand
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Thanks, good call, updated to use which to locate these.
In re privilege escalation, if command line names aren't fully qualified, a malicious user with access to $PATH could save an executable named tar in a location that had precedence over /usr/bin and get up to shenanigans. Not the biggest risk in this scenario but it's a belt and suspenders kind of thing.
akotlar
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Sep 28, 2023
akotlar
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Sep 28, 2023
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@akotlar mind taking another look? Main changes:
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akotlar
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Oct 2, 2023
akotlar
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Oct 10, 2023
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@poneill merge at your convenience |
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At various points in annotation file processing we rely on tar to compress or decompress files. In particular, we use GNU tar and use certain features that are specific to that implementation. On linux, GNU tar is the default. On MacOSX, however, the default implementation is bsdtar, which is not fully compatible with GNU tar. If we end up calling bsdtar when we mean GNU tar, subtle bugs can result.
So, in order to run tar correctly we need to know which OS we're running it on and specify the correct executable name for GNU tar (or raise an error if it isn't installed). This commit defines a utils module that provides a runtime constant GNU_TAR_EXECUTABLE_NAME valid under linux or MacOSX.
Closes #277