/usr/share/doc/linux-user-chroot/README is in linux-user-chroot 2013.1-2build1.
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This tool allows regular (non-root) users to call chroot(2), create
Linux bind mounts, and use some Linux container features. It's
primarily intended for use by build systems.
Project information
-------------------
There's no web page yet; send patches to
Colin Walters <walters@verbum.org>
Why is this useful?
-------------------
For build systems, being inside a chroot ensures that the build isn't
picking up files it shouldn't be. This helps avoid the problem of
"host contamination", where e.g. we want libfoo.h from inside our
root, not the one outside the root.
Second, it helps avoid the fragility inherent in having to set up a
large set of environment variables pointing to our root (e.g. PATH,
LD_LIBRARY_PATH, XDG_DATA_DIRS, etc.). Once we chroot, PATH is just
the same as it normally is (/bin:/usr/bin).
Security
--------
**** IMPORTANT NOTE ****
Installing this tool accessible to all users significantly increases
their ability to perform local, authenticated denial of service
attacks. The intended mitigation against this is to ensure the tool
is only executable by certain users.
**** IMPORTANT NOTE ****
The historical reason Unix doesn't allow chroot(2) as non-root is
because of setuid binaries. It's trivial to use chroot to create a
hostile environment, then execute a setuid binary to subvert it.
This tool closes that historical hole by simply disallowing privilege
gain by execution of setuid binaries. It creates a "nosuid" bind
mount over "/". This restriction is typically irrelevant for build
systems.
However, this tool also allows creating bind mounts, which currently
have no resource controls. This is why this tool is not intended to
be installed by default.
Abilities granted
-----------------
However in order to make a usable system, it's not quite enough to be
able to call chroot(2). A lot of Unix software expects
e.g. /dev/null, and Linux /proc is also fairly widely used. So
this tool also allows creating Linux "bind mounts". This is how
one can expose the "host" /dev inside the chroot. Also, this tool
allows mounting procfs.
In addition, this tool exposes several of the Linux "unshare"
capabilities such as:
* CLONE_NEWNET - create a new, empty networking stack. Because
the child process won't have the privilges to manipulate the
network, this will result in no networking (including loopback)
which ensures that e.g. the build process isn't downloading more
code.
* CLONE_NEWPID - create a new PID namespace. For example, if the
build script runs some test scripts that start processes, "pidof"
won't accidentally pick up a similarly-named process outside of
the root.
* CLONE_NEWIPC - get a new SysV IPC namespace. This is just further
isolation.
See "man 2 clone" for more information.
Example usage
-------------
Note here all files are owned by the user.
$ mkdir -p /path/to/my/chroot/usr/src/project
$ linux-user-chroot --unshare-pid --unshare-net --unshare-pid \
--mount-proc /proc --mount-bind /dev /dev \
--mount-bind /home/user/source/project /usr/src/project \
/path/to/my/chroot /bin/sh
Here we're creating a bind mount inside the chroot to outside. This
helps avoid copying files around.
Installing
----------
This binary can be installed in two modes:
1) uwsr-xr-x root:root - Executable by everyone
2) uwsr-x--- root:somegroup - Executable only by somegroup
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