CVE-2018-20683 (published 2019-01-10T01:29Z)

commands/rsync in Gitolite before 3.6.11, if .gitolite.rc enables rsync, mishandles the rsync command line, which allows attackers to have a "bad" impact by triggering use of an option other than -v, -n, -q, or -P.

Severity: MEDIUM
CVSS v2 base score: 6.8 (AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P)
CVSS v3 base score: 8.1, HIGH (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H)

Weakness information:
cwe_id: CWE-20
cwe_name: Improper Input Validation
description: The product receives input or data, but it does
        not validate or incorrectly validates that the input has the
        properties that are required to process the data safely and
        correctly.
extended_description: 
	   Input validation is a frequently-used technique
	   for checking potentially dangerous inputs in order to
	   ensure that the inputs are safe for processing within the
	   code, or when communicating with other components.  When
	   software does not validate input properly, an attacker is
	   able to craft the input in a form that is not expected by
	   the rest of the application. This will lead to parts of the
	   system receiving unintended input, which may result in
	   altered control flow, arbitrary control of a resource, or
	   arbitrary code execution.
	   Input validation is not the only technique for
	   processing input, however.  Other techniques attempt to
	   transform potentially-dangerous input into something safe, such
	   as filtering (CWE-790) - which attempts to remove dangerous
	   inputs - or encoding/escaping (CWE-116), which attempts to
	   ensure that the input is not misinterpreted when it is included
	   in output to another component. Other techniques exist as well
	   (see CWE-138 for more examples.)
	   Input validation can be applied to:
	   
	     raw data - strings, numbers, parameters, file contents, etc.
	     metadata - information about the raw data, such as headers or size
	   
	   Data can be simple or structured.  Structured data
	   can be composed of many nested layers, composed of
	   combinations of metadata and raw data, with other simple or
	   structured data.
	   Many properties of raw data or metadata may need
	   to be validated upon entry into the code, such
	   as:
	   
	     specified quantities such as size, length, frequency, price, rate, number of operations, time, etc.
	     implied or derived quantities, such as the actual size of a file instead of a specified size
	     indexes, offsets, or positions into more complex data structures
	     symbolic keys or other elements into hash tables, associative arrays, etc.
	     well-formedness, i.e. syntactic correctness - compliance with expected syntax 
	     lexical token correctness - compliance with rules for what is treated as a token
	     specified or derived type - the actual type of the input (or what the input appears to be)
	     consistency - between individual data elements, between raw data and metadata, between references, etc.
	     conformance to domain-specific rules, e.g. business logic 
	     equivalence - ensuring that equivalent inputs are treated the same
	     authenticity, ownership, or other attestations about the input, e.g. a cryptographic signature to prove the source of the data
	   
	   Implied or derived properties of data must often
	   be calculated or inferred by the code itself.  Errors in
	   deriving properties may be considered a contributing factor
	   to improper input validation.
	   
	   Note that "input validation" has very different
	   meanings to different people, or within different
	   classification schemes.  Caution must be used when
	   referencing this CWE entry or mapping to it.  For example,
	   some weaknesses might involve inadvertently giving control
	   to an attacker over an input when they should not be able
	   to provide an input at all, but sometimes this is referred
	   to as input validation.
	   Finally, it is important to emphasize that the
	   distinctions between input validation and output escaping
	   are often blurred, and developers must be careful to
	   understand the difference, including how input validation
	   is not always sufficient to prevent vulnerabilities,
	   especially when less stringent data types must be
	   supported, such as free-form text. Consider a SQL injection
	   scenario in which a person's last name is inserted into a
	   query. The name "O'Reilly" would likely pass the validation
	   step since it is a common last name in the English
	   language. However, this valid name cannot be directly
	   inserted into the database because it contains the "'"
	   apostrophe character, which would need to be escaped or
	   otherwise transformed. In this case, removing the
	   apostrophe might reduce the risk of SQL injection, but it
	   would produce incorrect behavior because the wrong name
	   would be recorded.
       
         

Fix information:
repo_url: https://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite
commit_details: repo_url: https://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite
author: Sitaram Chamarty
author_date: 2018-12-25 14:44:51+05:30
msg: tighten up security for rsync

Nick Cleaton (nick@cleaton.net) found and reported a security issue
caused by trusting the remote rsync too much.  It appears that rsync
cannot -- without special precautions -- be used in any "restricted"
environment.

Gitolite ships with a "bundle helper" called "rsync" (disabled
by default; more details below).  This fix tightens up this
helper to close this hole.

TLDR for administrators and packagers:

1.  Am I affected?

    Look in ~/.gitolite.rc for "rsync"; if it is there, you are
    affected.

    This is NOT an essential program, and it is not enabled by
    default.  You (or a previous administrator of your site)
    would have to have explicitly enabled it for you to be
    affected.

2.  What's the quick fix?

    Comment out the "rsync" line in ~/.gitolite.rc IMMEDIATELY.

    DO NOT LEAVE IT ENABLED IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO UPGRADE IMMEDIATELY!
    Uncomment it only after you have upgraded or patched.

3.  That bad, huh?

    Sadly, yes :(

DETAILS:

This program is not a core program.  Despite the name, it will not
function as a generic "rsync".

This is *only* meant to help out people who are on flaky connections,
trying to clone a large repo.

Because git clone is not resumable, one common technique is to have
someone create a "bundle", then download the bundle to seed the local
repo, then "git fetch" to finish off.  Since the bundle is a single
file, you can use resumable mechanisms (like rsync) to download it.

What this command does is allow that kind of bundling to happen
automatically, if an administrator enables it.

The user simply rsyncs a bundle file using his gitolite
credentials.  As a result, the rsync helper command that ships
with gitolite is executed.  This program manages the creation
and expiry of bundle files, then passes control to the *real*
rsync program to perform the actual data transfer.

It is this last step that requires special care when used in a
restricted environment, resulting in the need for this patch.
repository: repo_url: https://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite
repo_name: sitaramc/gitolite
description: Hosting git repositories -- Gitolite allows you to setup git hosting on a central server, with very fine-grained access control and many (many!) more powerful features.
repo_language: Perl
owner: sitaramc
file_changes: filename: rsync
change_type: ModificationType.MODIFY
diff: @@ -28,11 +28,6 @@ BUNDLE SUPPORT
 
     (2) Add 'rsync' to the ENABLE list in the rc file
 
-
-GENERIC RSYNC SUPPORT
-
-    TBD
-
 =cut
 
 =for usage
@@ -43,7 +38,7 @@ BUNDLE SUPPORT
     Admins: see src/commands/rsync for setup instructions
 
     Users:
-        rsync -P git@host:repo.bundle .
+        rsync git@host:repo.bundle .
             # downloads a file called "<basename of repo>.bundle"; repeat as
             # needed till the whole thing is downloaded
         git clone repo.bundle repo
@@ -51,9 +46,8 @@ BUNDLE SUPPORT
         git remote set-url origin git@host:repo
         git fetch origin    # and maybe git pull, etc. to freshen the clone
 
-GENERIC RSYNC SUPPORT
-
-    TBD
+    NOTE on options to the rsync command: you are only allowed to use the
+    "-v", "-n", "-q", and "-P" options.
 
 =cut
 
@@ -62,9 +56,9 @@ usage() if not @ARGV or $ARGV[0] eq '-h';
 # rsync driver program.  Several things can be done later, but for now it
 # drives just the 'bundle' transfer.
 
-if ( $ENV{SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND} =~ /^rsync --server --sender (-[-\w=.]+ )+\. (\S+)\.bundle$/ ) {
+if ( $ENV{SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND} =~ /^rsync --server --sender (?:-[vn]*(?:e\d*\.\w*)? )?\. (\S+)\.bundle$/ ) {
 
-    my $repo = $2;
+    my $repo = $1;
     $repo =~ s/\.git$//;
 
     # all errors have the same message to avoid leaking info
@@ -81,7 +75,7 @@ if ( $ENV{SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND} =~ /^rsync --server --sender (-[-\w=.]+ )+\. (\S
     exit 0;
 }
 
-_warn "invalid rsync command '$ENV{SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND}'";
+_warn "Sorry, you are only allowed to use the '-v', '-n', '-q', and '-P' options.";
 usage();
 
 # ----------------------------------------------------------------------

programming_language: Perl