Logfile symlink vulnerability

[Eran Tromer <cygwinx2eran2eran at tromer dot org>]

Hi,

If /tmp/XWin.log is a symlink, XWin will merrily follow it and write to
whatever it's pointing to (see LogInit() in os/log.c). This allows
standard symlink-following attacks.

Example: Alice runs "ln -s /home/Bob/phd-thesis.tex /tmp/XWin.log" under
her account. Later Bob runs XWin under his account; XWin fails for some
reasons and writes to /tmp/XWin.log; Bob life's work gets overwritten.

(Of course, that's interesting only if ntsec is used.)

Some possible fixes:
* Place the logfile somewhere in the user's home directory.
* Refuse to follow symlinks, or to write to existing files. Most users,
failing to clean up logs, will not get new logs after the first failure.
* Give the logfile a unique filename, a la the "uniq" utility.

  Eran