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Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2017 11:31:57 -0400
From: Jeffrey Walton <noloader@...il.com>
To: oss-security@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: Fw: Security risk of vim swap files
On Wed, Nov 1, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Tim <tim-security@...tinelchicken.org> wrote:
>> > Also, it almost never makes sense to put things in /tmp, for several
>> > reasons pointed out by others. Making ~/.vim/... the default location
>> > clearly is the best solution.
>>
>> And all those reasons make no sense. /tmp has a sticky bit precisely so that
>> people could put stuff there, as opposed to /run.
>
> We've been spending decades fixing filesystem races that arise from
> cases where people use temporary files in world-writable directories.
> You have to get a half dozen things exactly correct in order to use
> /tmp. Why take the risk? Doesn't every normal (human) user account
> have a home directory that is already protected?
Some installs don't allow users to write to /tmp. For example, some
machines on GCC's compile farm do not allow it. I seem to recall the
error was a RO mount. Also see https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/CompileFarm.
Code and scripts certainly need to check TMPDIR and then have a
fallback strategy if it is missing.
Jeff
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