[Koha-devel] Bug 5636

[Galen Charlton]

Hi,

On 12/12/2011 11:24 AM, Ian Walls wrote:
> My difficulty with this patch is that it sets precedent for implementing
> both commandline and staff client interfaces for a single script.  Up
> until now, that's not be the case (as far as my research has shown;
> counter-examples welcome).  I just think we need, for consistency sake,
> to either make this the standard practice, or require separate cronjobs.

I think it goes beyond just consistency.  Without having looked at the 
particular script in question, most/all command-line scripts produce 
output files.  No big deal, right?  But if the script can also run as a 
CGI script, keep in mind that it runs with the same privileges as the 
whatever user the webserver is running as.  If such a script has a bug 
that allows it to be run by Apache *and* invoke one or more of the 
command-line output file options, in principle it could scribble over 
other files.

Such an attack may be more theoretical than real, but my preference 
would be that if a script's logic should be accessible from the command 
line and the web interface, to put the logic in the API and have the CGI 
and CLI scripts just be thin wrappers.

Regards,

Galen
-- 
Galen Charlton
Director of Support and Implementation
Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts
email:  gmc at esilibrary.com
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