doc/security
author Paul Crowley <paul@lshift.net>
Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:50:56 +0100
changeset 101 8b4cdc066967
parent 83 86ec1268d306
child 104 d9665b290636
permissions -rw-r--r--
Link to new mercurial-server website in README
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SECURITY OF MERCURIAL-SERVER
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mercurial-server relies entirely on sshd to grant access to remote users. As a
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result, it runs no daemons, installs no setuid programs, and no part of it
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runs as root except the install process: all programs run as the user hg. And
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any attack on mercurial-server can only be started if the Bad Guys already
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have a public key in ~hg/.ssh/authorized_keys, otherwise sshd will bar the
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way. No matter what command the user tries to run on the remote system via
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ssh, mercurial-server is run. 
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It parses the command line the user asked for, and interprets and runs the
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corresponding hg operation itself if access is allowed, so users can only read
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and add to history within repositories; they cannot run any other hg command.
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In addition, every push and pull is logged with a datestamp, changeset ID and
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the key that performed the operation.
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However, while the first paragraph holds no matter what bugs mercurial-server
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contains, the second depends on the relevant code being correct; though the
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entire codebase is currently only about twice as long as this README,
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mercurial-server is a fairly new program and may harbour bugs. Backups are
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essential!