HAProxy - Load balancer
Find a file
Willy Tarreau d96f1126fe MEDIUM: init: prevent process and thread creation at runtime
Some concerns are regularly raised about the risk to inherit some Lua
files which make use of a fork (e.g. via os.execute()) as well as
whether or not some of bugs we fix might or not be exploitable to run
some code. Given that haproxy is event-driven, any foreground activity
completely stops processing and is easy to detect, but background
activity is a different story. A Lua script could very well discretely
fork a sub-process connecting to a remote location and taking commands,
and some injected code could also try to hide its activity by creating
a process or a thread without blocking the rest of the processing. While
such activities should be extremely limited when run in an empty chroot
without any permission, it would be better to get a higher assurance
they cannot happen.

This patch introduces something very simple: it limits the number of
processes and threads to zero in the workers after the last thread was
created. By doing so, it effectively instructs the system to fail on
any fork() or clone() syscall. Thus any undesired activity has to happen
in the foreground and is way easier to detect.

This will obviously break external checks (whose concept is already
totally insecure), and for this reason a new option
"insecure-fork-wanted" was added to disable this protection, and it
is suggested in the fork() error report from the checks. It is
obviously recommended not to use it and to reconsider the reasons
leading to it being enabled in the first place.

If for any reason we fail to disable forks, we still start because it
could be imaginable that some operating systems refuse to set this
limit to zero, but in this case we emit a warning, that may or may not
be reported since we're after the fork point. Ideally over the long
term it should be conditionned by strict-limits and cause a hard fail.
2019-12-03 11:49:00 +01:00
.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE DOC: Add GitHub issue config.yml 2019-11-03 15:36:06 +01:00
contrib BUG/MINOR: contrib/prometheus-exporter: decode parameter and value only 2019-11-27 11:51:35 +01:00
doc MEDIUM: init: prevent process and thread creation at runtime 2019-12-03 11:49:00 +01:00
ebtree BUILD: ebtree: make eb_is_empty() and eb_is_dup() take a const 2019-10-02 15:24:19 +02:00
examples CLEANUP: removed obsolete examples an move a few to better places 2019-06-15 21:25:06 +02:00
include MEDIUM: init: prevent process and thread creation at runtime 2019-12-03 11:49:00 +01:00
reg-tests MINOR: backend: Add srv_name sample fetche 2019-11-01 05:40:24 +01:00
scripts SCRIPTS: update create-release to fix the changelog on new branches 2019-11-25 20:40:52 +01:00
src MEDIUM: init: prevent process and thread creation at runtime 2019-12-03 11:49:00 +01:00
tests TESTS: Add a stress-test for mt_lists. 2019-09-23 18:16:08 +02:00
.cirrus.yml BUILD: CI: comment out cygwin build, upgrade various ssl libraries 2019-10-29 06:27:50 +01:00
.gitignore DOC: create a BRANCHES file to explain the life cycle 2019-06-15 22:00:14 +02:00
.travis.yml BUILD: CI: comment out cygwin build, upgrade various ssl libraries 2019-10-29 06:27:50 +01:00
BRANCHES DOC: create a BRANCHES file to explain the life cycle 2019-06-15 22:00:14 +02:00
CHANGELOG [RELEASE] Released version 2.2-dev0 2019-11-25 20:36:16 +01:00
CONTRIBUTING DOC: improve the wording in CONTRIBUTING about how to document a bug fix 2019-07-26 15:46:21 +02:00
INSTALL DOC: this is development again 2019-11-25 20:37:49 +01:00
LICENSE LICENSE: add licence exception for OpenSSL 2012-09-07 13:52:26 +02:00
MAINTAINERS DOC: wurfl: added point of contact in MAINTAINERS file 2019-04-23 11:00:23 +02:00
Makefile BUILD: reorder the objects in the makefile 2019-11-25 19:47:23 +01:00
README DOC: create a BRANCHES file to explain the life cycle 2019-06-15 22:00:14 +02:00
ROADMAP DOC: update the outdated ROADMAP file 2019-06-15 21:59:54 +02:00
SUBVERS BUILD: use format tags in VERDATE and SUBVERS files 2013-12-10 11:22:49 +01:00
VERDATE [RELEASE] Released version 2.1.0 2019-11-25 19:47:40 +01:00
VERSION [RELEASE] Released version 2.2-dev0 2019-11-25 20:36:16 +01:00

The HAProxy documentation has been split into a number of different files for
ease of use.

Please refer to the following files depending on what you're looking for :

  - INSTALL for instructions on how to build and install HAProxy
  - BRANCHES to understand the project's life cycle and what version to use
  - LICENSE for the project's license
  - CONTRIBUTING for the process to follow to submit contributions

The more detailed documentation is located into the doc/ directory :

  - doc/intro.txt for a quick introduction on HAProxy
  - doc/configuration.txt for the configuration's reference manual
  - doc/lua.txt for the Lua's reference manual
  - doc/SPOE.txt for how to use the SPOE engine
  - doc/network-namespaces.txt for how to use network namespaces under Linux
  - doc/management.txt for the management guide
  - doc/regression-testing.txt for how to use the regression testing suite
  - doc/peers.txt for the peers protocol reference
  - doc/coding-style.txt for how to adopt HAProxy's coding style
  - doc/internals for developer-specific documentation (not all up to date)