commit d1028bcc587c909e8a2be202f6679d0f9e50be34
parent c6f775fb648ebb5451a5df5308336a4da76160c3
Author: Jordan Ritter <jpr5@darkridge.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 18:22:32 +0000
added option -R, to allow users to consciously avoid any dropprivs if they
don't want it.
Diffstat:
2 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/ngrep.8 b/ngrep.8
@@ -96,6 +96,23 @@ a packet is matched.
Print a timestamp in the form of +S.UUUUUU, indicating the delta
between packet matches.
+.IP -R
+Do not try to drop privileges to the DROPPRIVS_USER.
+
+ngrep makes no effort to validate input from live or offline sources
+as it is focused more on performance and handling large amounts of
+data than protocol correctness, which is most often a fair assumption
+to make. However, sometimes it matters and thus as a rule ngrep will
+try to be defensive and drop any root privileges it might have.
+
+There exist scenarios where this behaviour can become an obstacle, so
+this option is provided to end-users who want to disable this feature,
+but must do so with an understanding of the risks. Packets can be
+randomly malformed or even specifically designed to overflow sniffers
+and take control of them, and revoking root privileges is currently
+the only risk mitigation ngrep employs against such an attack. Use
+this option and turn it off at your own risk.
+
.IP "-c cols"
Explicitly set the console width to ``cols''. Note that this is the
console width, and not the full width of what ngrep prints out as
diff --git a/ngrep.h b/ngrep.h
@@ -9,7 +9,6 @@
#define VERSION "1.42-cvs"
-
#define ETHHDR_SIZE 14
#define TOKENRING_SIZE 22
#define PPPHDR_SIZE 4