On Jan 22, 2009, at 4:09 PM, Joe Turner wrote:
I see. Then, how would you suggest to create a cloner/deleter, if it needs root privileges, but cannot use the security framework?
I didn't say you couldn't use the security framework. I said you ought to consider re-thinking your strategy.
And, since running scripts from root is dangerous, then is there any good way to be able to delete protected (not your user account) files? Or, should I just have it copy or delete files the user has access to?
There's nothing wrong with running scripts strictly as root, since a lot of system scripts are run this way. But AEWP() doesn't run executables as root; it runs them as the user with root privileges. There's an important difference.
Instead of running a shell script, run another non-GUI command line tool of your making with AEWP() that does the required privileged task (s). Running shell code with root privileges as some user is possible, but it's an easy attack vector due to the inheritance of the user's shell environment. Running a command line tool is a bit more difficult to hack (but still possible if someone is determined enough). Plus, then you can use NSFileManager. :)
You could even take security to the extreme, as I once did in an application, and check signatures before calling AEWP(), but that's probably too extreme, as it's unlikely someone will rewrite or replace your executable unless the file system gave them permission to do so.
Nick Zitzmann <http://www.chronosnet.com/> _______________________________________________ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
