#909389 virt-inst --location security concern

Package:
virtinst
Source:
virt-manager
Submitter:
Simon Josefsson
Date:
2020-11-30 08:21:03 UTC
Severity:
normal
Tags:
#909389#5
Date:
2018-09-22 20:51:36 UTC
From:
To:
I rediscovered a problem I found a couple of years ago, and thought I'd
report it properly this time.

The problem is that "virt-install --location" does not verify
checksums/signatures of what is downloaded, and is thus vulnerable to a
network attack where someone replaces the kernel/initrd with a version
that is malicious.  As far as I know, there is no way to tell virt-
install what checksums to expect.

See earlier discussion here: https://www.redhat.com/archives/virt-tools
-list/2015-April/msg00214.html

Quoting the manpage which gives http-URLs to use:

       --location OPTIONS
...
           Debian
               http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/instal
ler-amd64/

           Ubuntu
               http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/wily/main/inst
aller-amd64/

A workaround is to replace the recommended http URLs with https URLs.
I checked that CA verification of the domain name works.  This gives
some protection, but far from a GnuPG-based verification that would be
ideal.

Run this command to see what is happening:

virt-install --name foo --memory 500 --disk none --location http://deb.
debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/installer-amd64/ --noautoconsole --
debug

/Simon

#909389#14
Date:
2020-11-30 08:19:36 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

In data sabato 22 settembre 2018 22:51:36 CET, hai scritto:
- a712549b2b9b0100907878fea18442be68b8d35f [1]
- b1460ba0654c00527c8d5632d69b30c7030dc182 [2]
which are both available in virt-manager 2.0.0.

Note that even before the above fixes it was possible to pass https
URLs to the installer location.

Also, the upstream bug rh#1632132 [3] was recently closed, also for
low priorities and not much interest shown in it. I'd tend to close
this bug as well, however I'm not strongly for it.

[1] https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/commit/a712549b2b9b0100907878fea18442be68b8d35f
[2] https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/commit/b1460ba0654c00527c8d5632d69b30c7030dc182
[3] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1632132