]> git.ipfire.org Git - thirdparty/git.git/commit
Work around Tcl's default `PATH` lookup
authorJohannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Wed, 23 Nov 2022 08:31:06 +0000 (09:31 +0100)
committerPratyush Yadav <me@yadavpratyush.com>
Tue, 24 Jan 2023 13:10:40 +0000 (14:10 +0100)
commitaae9560a355d4ab91385e49eae62fade2ddd27ef
tree228fd4a009b394c0c28a0320c79ba6965748dba9
parentfd477a1d3bab580c2fcdc435f551dca3094286ae
Work around Tcl's default `PATH` lookup

As per https://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.6/TclCmd/exec.html#M23, Tcl's `exec`
function goes out of its way to imitate the highly dangerous path lookup
of `cmd.exe`, but _of course_ only on Windows:

If a directory name was not specified as part of the application
name, the following directories are automatically searched in
order when attempting to locate the application:

    The directory from which the Tcl executable was loaded.

    The current directory.

    The Windows 32-bit system directory.

    The Windows home directory.

    The directories listed in the path.

The dangerous part is the second item, of course: `exec` _prefers_
executables in the current directory to those that are actually in the
`PATH`.

It is almost as if people wanted to Windows users vulnerable,
specifically.

To avoid that, Git GUI already has the `_which` function that does not
imitate that dangerous practice when looking up executables in the
search path.

However, Git GUI currently fails to use that function e.g. when trying to
execute `aspell` for spell checking.

That is not only dangerous but combined with Tcl's unfortunate default
behavior and with the fact that Git GUI tries to spell-check a
repository just after cloning, leads to a critical Remote Code Execution
vulnerability.

Let's override both `exec` and `open` to always use `_which` instead of
letting Tcl perform the path lookup, to prevent this attack vector.

This addresses CVE-2022-41953.

For more details, see
https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/security/advisories/GHSA-v4px-mx59-w99c

Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Signed-off-by: Pratyush Yadav <me@yadavpratyush.com>
git-gui.sh