Bug #16002: File.writable?('/tmp/file') returns true even if it's not writable on Linux 4.19+

• Status: Closed
• Assignee: -
• Target version: -
• ruby -v: ruby 2.6.3p62 (2019-04-16 revision 67580) [x86_64-linux]
• Backport: 2.5: UNKNOWN, 2.6: UNKNOWN

[SouravGoswami (Sourav Goswami)]

Well, on Linux Kernel 4.19+ the fs.protected_regular and fs.protected_fifos sysctls were introduced in order to make some data spoofing attacks harder.

https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob/03b6fa0c5b51b0d39334ff6ba183a3391443bcf6/NEWS#L53

If it's enabled (and it's true by default), then if you:

1. cd /tmp
2. touch file
3. chmod 666 file

Switch to any user, but let's use root for example

4. su root
5. irb

In irb:

┌┄┄[root::archlinux]┈[/tmp]
└──╼⮚ irb
irb(main):001:0> File.writable?('ruby.rb')
=> true
irb(main):002:0> File.stat('ruby.rb')
=> #<File::Stat dev=0x2d, ino=819138, mode=0100644, nlink=1, uid=1000, gid=1000, rdev=0x0, size=0, blksize=4096, blocks=0, atime=2019-07-14 04:44:13 +0530, mtime=2019-07-14 04:44:13 +0530, ctime=2019-07-14 04:44:13 +0530>
irb(main):003:0> File.write('ruby.rb', '#!/usr/bin/ruby -w')
Traceback (most recent call last):
        3: from /root/.irb:351:in `<main>'
        2: from (irb):3
        1: from (irb):3:in `write'
Errno::EACCES (Permission denied @ rb_sysopen - ruby.rb)
irb(main):004:0> 

Screenshots:
https://imgur.com/tB4T5Jl
https://imgur.com/hzc5s27

Here's a stackoverflow post:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/57030460/11089758

And the same behaviour is seen in editors like nano, vi, atom, geany, code, mousepad editors.

Now as Ruby's File.writable?(str) checks for the permissions, it returns true.

The problem can be solved with sysctl fs.protected_regular=0.

But the issue is that File.writable?('/tmp/file') should return false if fs.protected_regular is 1 and the user is not the owner? of the file if the directory is /tmp/ on Linux.

[SouravGoswami (Sourav Goswami)]

• Description updated (diff)

[SouravGoswami (Sourav Goswami)]

• ruby -v changed from 2.6.3 to ruby 2.6.3p62 (2019-04-16 revision 67580) [x86_64-linux]

[akr (Akira Tanaka)]

• Status changed from Open to Feedback

File.writable? uses eaccess function of OS.

I think such OS-specific features should be implemented in OS.
Ruby cannot support all features of all OS.

For example, eaccess of GNU/Linux seems that support read-only filesystem.

This behavior conflicts the documentation.
So, some documentation update would be considerable.

[znz (Kazuhiro NISHIYAMA)]

I think checking permission before writing should be avoided.
It causes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-of-check_to_time-of-use.

• Status changed from Feedback to Closed

Applied in changeset git|978276a7d9249535f855088f866551b6557f321f.

---

Update documentation for File#{readable,writable,executable}{,_real}? [ci skip]

Some OS-level security features cause these methods to not return
expected results. For example fs.protected_regular sysctl on Linux,
or pledge(2)/unveil(2) on OpenBSD.

Fixes [Bug #16002]