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templates: Disable the os-prober by default
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The os-prober is enabled by default what may lead to potentially
dangerous use cases and borderline opening attack vectors. This
patch disables the os-prober, adds warning messages and updates
GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER configuration option documentation. This
way we make it clear that the os-prober usage is not recommended.

Simplistic nature of this change allows downstream vendors, who
really want os-prober to be enabled out of the box in their
relevant products, easily revert to it's old behavior.

Reported-by: NyankoSec (<nyanko@10x.moe>, https://twitter.com/NyankoSec),
             working with SSD Secure Disclosure
Signed-off-by: Alex Burmashev <alexander.burmashev@oracle.com>
Reviewed-by: Daniel Kiper <daniel.kiper@oracle.com>
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aburmash authored and Daniel Kiper committed Mar 2, 2021
1 parent 42facd5 commit e346414
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Showing 2 changed files with 14 additions and 9 deletions.
18 changes: 10 additions & 8 deletions docs/grub.texi
Expand Up @@ -1519,10 +1519,13 @@ boot sequence. If you have problems, set this option to @samp{text} and
GRUB will tell Linux to boot in normal text mode.

@item GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER
Normally, @command{grub-mkconfig} will try to use the external
@command{os-prober} program, if installed, to discover other operating
systems installed on the same system and generate appropriate menu entries
for them. Set this option to @samp{true} to disable this.
The @command{grub-mkconfig} has a feature to use the external
@command{os-prober} program to discover other operating systems installed on
the same machine and generate appropriate menu entries for them. It is disabled
by default since automatic and silent execution of @command{os-prober}, and
creating boot entries based on that data, is a potential attack vector. Set
this option to @samp{false} to enable this feature in the
@command{grub-mkconfig} command.

@item GRUB_OS_PROBER_SKIP_LIST
List of space-separated FS UUIDs of filesystems to be ignored from os-prober
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -1850,10 +1853,9 @@ than zero; otherwise 0.
@section Multi-boot manual config

Currently autogenerating config files for multi-boot environments depends on
os-prober and has several shortcomings. While fixing it is scheduled for the
next release, meanwhile you can make use of the power of GRUB syntax and do it
yourself. A possible configuration is detailed here, feel free to adjust to your
needs.
os-prober and has several shortcomings. Due to that it is disabled by default.
It is advised to use the power of GRUB syntax and do it yourself. A possible
configuration is detailed here, feel free to adjust to your needs.

First create a separate GRUB partition, big enough to hold GRUB. Some of the
following entries show how to load OS installer images from this same partition,
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5 changes: 4 additions & 1 deletion util/grub.d/30_os-prober.in
Expand Up @@ -26,7 +26,8 @@ export TEXTDOMAINDIR="@localedir@"

. "$pkgdatadir/grub-mkconfig_lib"

if [ "x${GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER}" = "xtrue" ]; then
if [ "x${GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER}" = "xfalse" ]; then
gettext_printf "os-prober will not be executed to detect other bootable partitions.\nSystems on them will not be added to the GRUB boot configuration.\nCheck GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER documentation entry.\n"
exit 0
fi

Expand All @@ -39,6 +40,8 @@ OSPROBED="`os-prober | tr ' ' '^' | paste -s -d ' '`"
if [ -z "${OSPROBED}" ] ; then
# empty os-prober output, nothing doing
exit 0
else
grub_warn "$(gettext_printf "os-prober was executed to detect other bootable partitions.\nIt's output will be used to detect bootable binaries on them and create new boot entries.")"
fi

osx_entry() {
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