[Samba] permissions, and maybe a violation of the least surprise principle

[Nick Couchman]

On Mon, Nov 8, 2021 at 10:54 AM Patrick Goetz via samba <
samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:

> I'm down to the last step of my current re-implementation of Samba,
> namely getting the permissions to work right.
>
> Here is the share section (+ some general) from my smb.conf file:
>
>
>     winbind refresh tickets = Yes
>     vfs objects = acl_xattr
>
> [share]
>     comment = Share Directory
>     path = /data/share
>     guest ok = no
>     browseable = yes
>     writeable = yes
>     create mask = 0770
>     directory mask = 0770
>     # inherit permissions = yes
>     follow symlinks = yes
>
>
>
> Here are the filesystem permissions on the directory:
>
> root at data2:/data# ls -ld share
> drwxrws---+ 3 root ea-staff 4096 Nov  6 16:31 share
>
> root at data2:/data# getfacl share
> # file: share
> # owner: root
> # group: ea-staff
> # flags: -s-
> user::rwx
> group::rwx
> other::---
> default:user::rwx
> default:group::rwx
> default:group:ea-staff:rwx
> default:mask::rwx
> default:other::---
>
>
> Notice that the setgid bit is set, with group = (security group) ea-staff
>
> So, I login on a Windows machine as a member of the ea-staff group, and
> save a document to the share:
>
> root at data2:/data/share# ls -l top*
> -rwxrwx---+ 1 dhales domain users 227 Nov  8 09:12
> top-secret_document_only_staff_should_see.rtf
>
>
> Notice that the setgid bit on the parent folder was ignored, and the
> primary group assignment to the file is Domain Users.  Worse, anyone in
> Domain Users has access to write this file, although I suppose the lack
> of other  "x" permission on the parent folder might prevent access.
>
>
You might try the "force group" option in smb.conf - there's an option that
you can use with that, I believe pre-pending the group name with a "+",
that will force the group only if the user is a member of that group.


> I think I read that if you are using Windows ACLs, then the Windows ACLs
> are checked and honored first; however this seems like a violation of
> the least surprise principle, since I'm getting user rights  elevations
> (namely Domain Users read/write access) that I don't want.
>
> These Wiki pages talk about using POSIX and Windows ACLs respectively:
>
>    https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Setting_up_a_Share_Using_POSIX_ACLs
>    https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Setting_up_a_Share_Using_Windows_ACLs
>
>   but I can't figure out how to tell the system I would prefer to base
> ACLs on POSIX rather than Windows ACLs.
>
>
In those two pages, there are two different methods of ACLs that are
mentioned:
* POSIX ACLs, which use either basic POSIX permissions, or extended POSIX
ACLs (getfacl and setfacl) to process permissions. The permissions that you
see on the Windows side are just a best-effort mapping of Windows
permissions to POSIX permissions - there is no additional "storage" of
Windows permissions beyond what you see on the filesystem.
* Using the acl_xattr VFS module to store the extended Windows ACLs in an
extended attribute on the filesystem. This has the advantage of supporting
more complete and specific Windows ACLs, but at the cost that you're not
going to be able to "see" those permissions on the UNIX filesystem. Unless
you set the option to ignore system permissions, Samba still tries to map
through the underlying ACL as best as possible (full control is rwx, modify
is w, read is r, execute is x, etc), so that there's some level of mapping
between the Windows and Linux permissions.


>
> Now, for the "it gets worse" category.  There is an awful lot of
> misinformation about configuring a Home share, perhaps because the
> Windows people seem to see this as something you use for backup only.
> The Home folder Wiki page also suggests that you can use GPO drive
> mapping for this rather than setting it in the user's Profile. Looking
> online I see Windows admins stating that one should *not* use GPO file
> sharing to configure the home directory and that only the user's Profile
> tab should be used for this.  In any case, Folder Redirection does not
> appear to work unless you set up a home directory under Profile.
>
> Otherwise, using /home for this purpose appears to work fine and means
> the user will have immediate access to all their files when they ssh
> into the linux fileserver.  However:
>
> [home]
>     comment = Home Directories
>     path = /data/home
>     guest ok = no
>     browseable = no
>     writeable = yes
>     create mask = 0700
>     directory mask = 0700
>     follow symlinks = yes
>
> root at data2:/data# ls -ld home
> drwxr-xr-x+ 8 root root 4096 Nov  6 08:27 home
> root at data2:/data# getfacl home
> # file: home
> # owner: root
> # group: root
> user::rwx
> group::r-x
> group:domain\040admins:rwx      #effective:r-x
> mask::r-x
> other::r-x
>
>
> /home is a bind mount to /data/home
>
>
> The same user logs in on a W10 client and saves a file to his Documents
> folder:
>
> root at data2:~# cd /home/dhales/Documents/
> root at data2:/home/dhales/Documents# ls -l my*
> -rwxrwx---+ 1 dhales domain users 222 Nov  8 09:25 my-super-secret-file.rtf
>
>
> So looks like the create mask is being ignored as well?
>
> I spend a lot of time adjusting permissions for users.  Most of them
> can't figure out how to do this themselves, and letting a user loose in
> the Windows ACL zoo seems like a recipe for disaster anyway.
>
> Consequently I'd prefer to manage POSIX ACLs via the filesystem and ssh
> and then have the Windows ACL's approximated from that. Is there a way
> to do this?
>
> It also seems to me that the filesystem permissions should *never* be
> bypassed under any circumstances.
>
> Final question if anyone in the know has read this far. By default the
> Windows ACLs are stored in a TDB database on the fileserver's
> filesystem?  What happens to these permissions if I migrate the data
> (say, via rsync) to another server? Seems like all the Windows ACLs will
> be lost unless I transfer the relevant database as well.
>
>
No, this is not the default case. In order to actually enable storing
permissions in a TDB module, you'd need to enable the VFS module(s) that
support that - there's an "acl_tdb" module and a "xattr_tdb" module that
enable ACL and Extended Attribute support in TDBs, respectively. Otherwise
the permissions are just mapped through from POSIX permissions as best as
possible.

-Nick