Rails 1.1.6: Stronger fix, backports, and full disclosure

Ruby
1

The cat is out of the bag, so here’s the full disclosure edition of
the current security vulnerability. With Rails 1.1.0 through 1.1.5
(minus the short-lived 1.1.3), you can trigger the evaluation of Ruby
code through the URL because of a bug in the routing code of Rails.
This means that you can essentially take down a Rails process by
starting something like /script/profiler, as the code will run for a
long time and that process will be hung while it happens. Other URLs
can even cause data loss.

We’ve backported a fix to all the affected versions for those of you
that can’t update. You’ll have to apply the diff for your version:

These patches (and 1.1.6) will break applications using the 3rd party
engines idea. So if you can’t upgrade because of dependencies to
those, you can also add the following URL blocking while engines are
being updated. Here’s how to do it with mod_rewrite under Apache:

RewriteRule
^(app|components|config|db|doc|lib|log|public|script|test|tmp|vendor)/

  • [F]

Here’s how to do it under lighttpd:

url.rewrite-once = (
“^/(app|components|config|db|doc|lib|log|public|script|test|tmp|vendor)/”
=> “index.html” )

Unfortunately, the 1.1.5 update from yesterday only partly closed the
hole (getting rid of the worst data loss trigger). After learning more
about the extent of the problem, we’ve now put together a 1.1.6
release that completely closes all elements of the hole (using the
same technique as the backports above).

So if you upgraded to 1.1.5 yesterday, you need to upgrade again. The
approach stays the same:

sudo gem install rails --include-dependencies

If you’re running of trunk (also known as edge) using revision 4394 or
later, you’re not affected by all this in any form.

We’ll follow up with more information as it becomes available.
Needless to say, this is all the Rails core team is working on right
now and we’ve recruited a whole band of testers to help us play this
out. We’ll make sure to evaluate all the feedback that’s been coming
in and develop a policy for dealing with security issues in the
future. Thanks for your continued understanding.

We’ve also started #rails-security on Freenet for people with IRC
available to get and share more information.

If you’re floating on gems (don’t have vendor/rails), then make sure
you update RAILS_GEM_VERSION in your config/environment.rb. Otherwise
you’ll still be bound to that earlier version of Rails even as you
install the new gems.

We continue to update http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/ with the latest
information as it becomes available.

2

David, what are the steps 3rd party engines need to do to fix their
code?

Thanks
Ed

3

David Heinemeier H. ha scritto:

The cat is out of the bag, so here’s the full disclosure edition of
the current security vulnerability. With Rails 1.1.0 through 1.1.5
(minus the short-lived 1.1.3), you can trigger the evaluation of Ruby
code through the URL because of a bug in the routing code of Rails.
This means that you can essentially take down a Rails process by
starting something like /script/profiler, as the code will run for a
long time and that process will be hung while it happens. Other URLs
can even cause data loss.

it is nice to see this kind of quick feedback and bugfix, but I wonder
if this coulkd have been avoided from the start by using $SAFE, someone
has ever investigated if rails can be made to run with higher safe
levels than 0 ?

4

Expect an engines fix in the next few hours.

  • james
5

On 8/10/06, David Heinemeier H. [email protected] wrote:

Here’s how to do it under lighttpd:

url.rewrite-once = (
“^/(app|components|config|db|doc|lib|log|public|script|test|tmp|vendor)/”
=> “index.html” )

Thanks a lot, especially for this virtually instant interim fix.

Les

6

On 8/10/06, James A. [email protected] wrote:

Expect an engines fix in the next few hours.

  • james

On 8/10/06, Ed Howland [email protected] wrote:

David, what are the steps 3rd party engines need to do to fix their code?

James,

Thanks. I am working with Jeff B. on Masterview Templates
which is a templating engine. It generally works with the 1.1.6 patch,
but they have special URL that goes to their Admin Console page. Jeff
confirmed that the 1.1.6 and 1.1.5 broke his routing.

He should have a workaround for it soon. It only affects the
development process. It should not affect any production code, AFAIK.

Ed

7

On 8/10/06, Peña, Botp [email protected] wrote:

Successfully installed actionmailer-1.2.5
Installing RDoc documentation for actionwebservice-1.1.6…
I got that as well, but it didn’t seem to break anything. Maybe my
local documentation is broken, but I use the web api one anyway.

Ed

8

fr David:

Sent: Friday, August 11, 2006 3:05 AM

To: ruby-talk ML; [email protected];

[email protected]

Subject: [ANN] Rails 1.1.6: Stronger fix, backports, and full

disclosure

just a small info.
on a test box w no app installed yet,

root@pc4all:~# gem install rails --include-dependencies
Need to update 19 gems from http://gems.rubyforge.org
…
complete
Successfully installed rails-1.1.6
Successfully installed actionpack-1.12.5
Successfully installed actionmailer-1.2.5
Successfully installed actionwebservice-1.1.6
Installing ri documentation for actionpack-1.12.5…
While generating documentation for actionpack-1.12.5
… MESSAGE: Unhandled special: Special: type=17, text=“”
… RDOC args: --ri --op
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/doc/actionpack-1.12.5/ri --quiet lib
(continuing with the rest of the installation)
Installing ri documentation for actionmailer-1.2.5…
Installing ri documentation for actionwebservice-1.1.6…
Installing RDoc documentation for actionpack-1.12.5…
Installing RDoc documentation for actionmailer-1.2.5…
Installing RDoc documentation for actionwebservice-1.1.6…
root@pc4all:~#

thanks for rails.
-botp

9

On 8/10/06, iain d broadfoot [email protected] wrote:

    Thanks for a super-nifty product, and for the prompt security
    updates.

    cheers,
    iain

David mentioned the creation of an announce-only list on Riding Rails:

After the requests for an RSS feed instead, we’ve been looking at a
Google Group for this:

http://groups.google.com/group/rails-security/

–
Rick O.
http://weblog.techno-weenie.net
http://mephistoblog.com

10

The cat is out of the bag, so here’s the full disclosure edition of
the current security vulnerability.

Would it be worth starting a rails-announce list that all users
could be encouraged to subscribe to? I guess there are still
people who haven't heard about this yet, and also guess that
they'd be more likely to sign up for a low-traffic announce list
than the (much) heavier main rails list.

Thanks for a super-nifty product, and for the prompt security
updates.

cheers,
iain

–
“If sharing a thing in no way diminishes it, it is not
rightly owned if it is not shared.” – St. Augustine
#rm -rf /
http://www.geeksoc.org/

11

http://weblog.rubyonrails.com/2006/8/10/new-security-mailing-list

12 
    Would it be worth starting a rails-announce list that all users
    could be encouraged to subscribe to? I guess there are still
    people who haven't heard about this yet, and also guess that
    they'd be more likely to sign up for a low-traffic announce list
    than the (much) heavier main rails list.