Can other users view the arguments passed to a command?

Question

If I invoke a command with arguments like so:

bob@bob-pc:~$ command -arg1 -arg2

...can other users view the arguments passed to the command?

A simple "yes" "no" answer to this question would contradict the content and the title :P — kizzx2, Feb 26 '11 at 04:29

score 16 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:37

In general, command line arguments are visible to all. For example, as a non-root user on OpenBSD, I can see arguments of processes running as root:

$ ps -U root -o command= |grep getty |head -n 1
/usr/libexec/getty std.9600 ttyC0

On Linux, you'll notice that all /proc/*/cmdline files are world-readable.

There may be highly specific settings in which command line arguments remain private. For example, SELinux and Solaris can altogether hide processes from other users. But unless you absolutely know you're in such a setting, assume command line arguments are public.

score 14 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 25 '11 at 23:31

14

In general yes, they can see it. This is from the w man page:

The following entries are displayed for each user: login name, the tty name, the remote host, login time, idle time, JCPU, PCPU, and the com‐ mand line of their current process.

The complete command line of your currently running process will be displayed. That's why you do not want to supply things like passwords through command line arguments.

answered Feb 25 '11 at 23:31

Jan Hlavacek

981

There's no way to disable that? – Nathan Osman Feb 25 '11 at 23:35
3

@George There is, because rdesktop does it somehow (the password argument turns into XXXXXXXX); I'd love to know how. It might do something lame like just forking itself and passing a fake argument; I'm not sure – Michael Mrozek Feb 25 '11 at 23:39
13

On Linux, a process can overwrite the argument array passed to it. This is the reflected in the process tree visible by other users. However, there's still always a time when they are exposed, and may be vulnerable to race conditions and timing attacks. – mattdm Feb 26 '11 at 00:06

score 8 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

8

On standard setups the arguments are visible. As already mentioned, processes can overwrite them in memory but not before other processes have had a chance to see them.

However, the grsecurity patchset includes a patch which changes it so only the process owner (and root) can see the arguments passed to a process.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

Community

1

answered Feb 26 '11 at 01:00

Maja Piechotka

16,676

Can other users view the arguments passed to a command?

3 Answers3