7

I'm trying to fully grasp the concept of setuid and setgid, and I'm not quite sure in what way permissions are actually elevated. Let me provide an example:

Users

userA (groups: userA groupA)
userB (groups: userB groupB GroupC)

Executable

Permission owner group  filename
-rws-----x userA groupD file
-rwsrws--x userA groupD file2

If userB executes file and file2, what group permission will the executables have? What I'm not completely sure about, is whether the executable gains user/group permissions of both the caller and the file owner, or if permissions are "replaced".

I know this is a silly example, as setuid and setgid will normally be used to envoke "all-powerful" applications, but I hope this example will be better at actually conceptualizing how setuid and setgid works.

jkgeyti
  • 173

2 Answers2

3

As far as I know:

  • With setuid the executable is executed as the executable's owner and the caller's groups. You do not have the executable's owner's group permissions.

  • With setgid the executable is executed as the caller. The set of groups contains the caller's groups and the executable's group.

(To be sure I have just tested this in Ubuntu 10.04)

Lasse Christiansen
  • 131
3

setuid sets the effective uid euid. setgid set the effective gid egid.

In both cases the callers uids and gids will stay in place. So roughly you can say that you will get that uid/gid in addition to the callers uid and (active) gid.

Some programs can differentiate that very well.

If you log into a system, then su to root and then issue a who am i you will see your "old" account.

su is one of these suid-binaries, that will change the euid.

Nils
  • 18,492
  • When tring it out, this seems to be correct for setgid. However, when I try with setuid, I do not seem to retain my own user's permissions when running an application. – jkgeyti Nov 08 '12 at 10:02
  • Ah - it seems I am mistaken - I reckon the binary may "change" between the real userid and effective userid at will (elevating privileges when required), essentially meaning that setuid and setgid gives you the set of all the binary's and caller's permissions? It seems to me, that this also explains how and why su reports "me" on whoami, while having the permissions of root. – jkgeyti Nov 08 '12 at 10:09