DMARC-Filter: OpenDMARC Filter v1.3.2 sourceware.org C53A6388E83E
MIME-Version: 1.0
References: <48b833bd-547a-92eb-542e-b7da8e0d601b@interocitors.com>
 <9d339f8b-83ff-8b9c-b2fe-1c6fa4b2a92d@SystematicSw.ab.ca>
 <472d5b4e-1916-eb79-cf3d-44f43b5f8b5d@cs.umass.edu>
In-Reply-To: <472d5b4e-1916-eb79-cf3d-44f43b5f8b5d@cs.umass.edu>
From: Bill Stewart <bstewart@iname.com>
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2021 08:02:16 -0700
Message-ID: <CANV9t=RSdA0NbXNYfbUTB-C-43P5ZZPDEJcOa13zxy3bS=_V5A@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Is it possible to define the root directory in a cross compiled
 program
To: cygwin@cygwin.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Sender: "Cygwin" <cygwin-bounces@cygwin.com>

On Tue, Jan 5, 2021 at 6:34 AM Eliot Moss wrote:

> Is there a Windows equivalent to chroot (either the program or the library/system call)?

See: https://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/highlights.html

Quoting:

"Chroot is supported. Kind of. Chroot is not a concept known by
Windows. This implies some serious restrictions. First of all, the
chroot call isn't a privileged call. Any user may call it. Second, the
chroot environment isn't safe against native windows processes. Given
that, chroot in Cygwin is only a hack which pretends security where
there is none. For that reason the usage of chroot is discouraged.
Don't use it unless you really, really know what you're doing."

What I have found is that the cygwin chroot is not a security boundary
(it seems it is possible for an account to "escape" from the "chroot
jail"). However, whatever account is being used by the cygwin process
is still subject to its rights/permissions in Windows (i.e.,
"escaping" from a "chroot jail" does not give additional rights and/or
permissions to an account that it didn't have before).

Bill
--
Problem reports:      https://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                  https://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:        https://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:     https://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple