Parallel Port Linux Security Robot Arm

[i2c]

Hiya,

Ive created a program do control a robotic arm ive build, (just out of junk hacked together pretty quick)

To access the I/O port, the compiled program must be either executed by root
or be suid root. This could be a potential system security hazard, rite?

well is there a way to run this program in a user account? the thing is the arm is network controlled (or soon to be, maybe this afternoon ) and im a bit concerned about the security cos im a paranoid freak.

Is the only problem here, if an attack can buffer overflow my program and create a root shell?

I mean it doesnt really matter if someone does connect remotely and starts attacking me with the arm, im more concerned about the general secuirty implications

cheers

i2c

[slarty]

There are several options.

1. Change to a non privileged user after calling ioperm

The program which controls the robot arm has to run as root *until it has opened the parallel port*

I assume you are using ioperm or something in order to enable direct I/O from that program. Obviously that's a privileged operation.

However, after successfully calling ioperm, the program can change its user ID away from root (with setuid and/or seteuid) and become a normal user.

The IO ports will still be able to be accessed for the duration of the process running.

2. Split the program into several pieces which are mutually non-trusting.

The other possibility is to write a small privileged server program which talks to the parallel port, and a second, less privileged (i.e. not root) program which does all the other tasks (including network IO)

They could communicate through pipes, unix sockets, shared memory, or use a higher level API to communicate.

---

These two approaches are not mutually exclusive, for maximum security you should probably do both.

Slarty

[i2c]

yep, im using ioperm,

interesting suggestions ill look into them, so the only way to do this is code a little more? There are no already made programs that I can use to achieve what i want?

I think i probably will code the extra, as i think ill learn somemore anyway

cheers

i2c

[instronics]

SUDO might be able to help you.

Do a man sudo for details.

Good luck.

[steve.milner]

Would adding a non root user to the lp group help with this problem?

Assuming things work like they do here:

ls -l /dev/lp* shows owner root group lp

if things are different make a group for lp & chgrp lp /dev/lp*

Then add a non root user to the group lp and try running you code as that user.

Just an idea,

Steve



Steve