Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 11:47:45 -0500
From: Edsel Adap <adap@ADAP.ORG>
Reply-To: Bugtraq List <BUGTRAQ@netspace.org>
To: BUGTRAQ@netspace.org
Subject: wordperfect 8 for linux security

Hi,

I sent a similar message to Corel about this.  And I figured I'd send
it out here in order to prevent people from opening up their systems by
installing word perfect 8 before the problem is fixed.

When wordperfect 8 is installed it creates a /tmp/wpc-<hostname>
directory with permissions 777.  And all files inside of it are mode
666.  And when these files are created, symlinks are followed.

You already know what this means when root tries to install word
perfect.

So to those of you who are planning to install word perfect 8 for
linux, don't do it as root.  Pick another user for doing the job.

--
Edsel Adap
edsel@adap.org
http://www.adap.org/~edsel/          LINUX - the choice of the GNU generation

"Netscape is an application which grows to fill all available memory."  - me

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:15:11 -0500
From: Dug Song <dugsong@MONKEY.ORG>
Reply-To: Bugtraq List <BUGTRAQ@netspace.org>
To: BUGTRAQ@netspace.org
Subject: Re: wordperfect 8 for linux security

On Fri, 18 Dec 1998, Edsel Adap wrote:

> When wordperfect 8 is installed it creates a /tmp/wpc-<hostname>
> directory with permissions 777.  And all files inside of it are mode
> 666.  And when these files are created, symlinks are followed.

if you're running OpenBSD, this is already fixed and in the ports tree:

        /usr/ports/editors/wordperfect

everyone else can just set $TMPDIR before running the install script...

-d.

---
http://www.monkey.org/~dugsong/

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 20:11:40 -0500
From: Peter W <peterw@CLARK.NET>
Reply-To: Bugtraq List <BUGTRAQ@netspace.org>
To: BUGTRAQ@netspace.org
Subject: Re: wordperfect 8 for linux security

Aleph: minor error in the first test of the script, should have quoted the env var in case it was not set. This should be correct, please use
this if you have not already approved the previous note.

Sorry, and thanks.

-Peter

Keith Owens wrote:

> On Fri, 18 Dec 1998 11:47:45 -0500,
> Edsel Adap <adap@ADAP.ORG> wrote:
> >When wordperfect 8 is installed it creates a /tmp/wpc-<hostname>
> >directory with permissions 777.  And all files inside of it are mode
> >666.  And when these files are created, symlinks are followed.
>
> Worse that that.  Even if you delete the wpc-<hostname> file, the next
> time you run wpc it creates it again.  So do not run wp8 under any
> powerful userid.

As noted before, WordPerfect respects TMPDIR, so start the app with something like:

#!/bin/sh
# Set $TMPDIR to ~/tmp if the user doesn't already have a TMPDIR variable
if [ "${TMPDIR}" = "" ]; then
        TMPDIR=${HOME}/tmp
fi
if [ ! -d "${TMPDIR}" ]; then
   # Need to make a new directory
   TMPDIR_TEST="error"
   /bin/mkdir "${TMPDIR}" && TMPDIR_TEST="ok"
   if [ ${TMPDIR_TEST} != "ok" ]; then
        /bin/echo "Unable to create safe tmp directory ${TMPDIR}"
        exit 1
    fi
    /bin/chmod o= "${TMPDIR}"
fi
# Set $TMPDIR for the wpc-$HOSTNAME junk
export TMPDIR
# Clear LD_LIBRARY_PATH to prevent reported seg faults
LD_LIBRARY_PATH="" export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
# Set the PATH and exec the app, passing any command-line args
PATH=${PATH}:/path/to/wordperfect/wpbin export PATH
exec xwp "${@-}" &

(thanks to Billy Ball, Bruce Israel, and David Niemi)

-Peter