RFC: Removing file(1)+libmagic(3) from the base system

[Peter Jeremy]

On 2007-May-23 17:23:25 -0400, David Schultz <das at freebsd.org> wrote:
>On Wed, May 23, 2007, Colin Percival wrote:
>> Can anyone make a strong argument for keeping this code in the base system?
>
>Removing it from the base system would merely amount to a
>marketing ploy, wherein we get to say that FreeBSD has fewer
>security holes because file(1) is a "third-party package".  Doing
>so wouldn't make FreeBSD installations any more secure in
>practice.

My thoughts as well.

The way I see it, file(1) is an interpreter for the language defined
in magic(5).  For most purposes (particularly when processing untrusted
input), the "program" that file(1) will execute is /usr/share/misc/magic

Viewed this way, I do not see it as any different to awk or sed.

From a security aspect, file(1) can extract C-style strings and
offsets from the untrusted input - and these obviously need careful
sanity checks in addition to the normal error checking.

Rather than treating ports as a ghetto for potentially unsafe
utilities, I believe the Project would be better off making those
utilities more robust.  Has the OpenBSD project got an 'audited'
file(1)?  If so, can we import it or the fixes?

-- 
Peter Jeremy
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