On Tue, Nov 22, 2005 at 12:36:46PM +0100, S. Thommerel wrote: > su root and then load firefox from the term. Then launch firefox from > another unrelated and normal user terminal. The newly launched firefox reads > root's > profile and gets root's rights. > > I normally have no rights to save anything in /usr/share with my user > account. I used firefox as root to go and grab an icon for xfce4 that I > could save in /usr/share/pixmaps. After that the download tab was the > only remaining part of root's firefox. > I loaded firefox (normal user account) and it didn't not show my normal > homepage. I tried to save google's logo in /usr/share/pixmaps. It > worked!!!
I don't think this is a bug. I think this is what you get when you allow other users to access your X server. Mozilla-based browsers have always communicated via the X server. When you run root's browser and give it access to your display, then try running another instance of the browser, the second instace notices that there's already a browser running on the X display and signals it to spawn a new window. Thus, there's really only one instance of the browser running. What attack vector do you see here, anyway? You're already root on the machine, it's not like you're going to get elevated privilages. And it's not going to work across X displays, so you don't need to worry about this problem being used maliciously against unsuspecting users. noah
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