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Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Oracle Reports desname Bug fixed with Fusion Middleware 11g

This time I come back with an old stuff, which I publish nearly 4 years ago (ups, I'm getting old): The famous Oracle Reports desname Bug, my White Paper concerning this can be found under following Link A Security Hole in Oracle Application Server (Reports) and how to ... (Website of my previous employer). Due to this bug (which was never fixed from Oracle in the Oracle Application Server 10g) it was/is possible to override any file to which the oracle user got access (details see in my mentioned White Paper).

And now start claping Oracle introduce in the Oracle Reports 11g (Part of the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g) a new Configuration Element <folderAccess> with which we can limit the read and write access for the Reports Server :-) Cool ...

The <folderAccess> Element can be defined in the $DOMAIN_NAME/servers/WLS_REPORTS/stage/reports/reports/configuration/rwserver.conf Configuration File for In-Process Servers or in the $ORACLE_INSTANCE/config/ReportsServerComponent/<reports_name>/rwserver.conf Configuration File for Standalone Reports Servers:
<folderAccess>
   <read>/u01/applications/demoapp/reports</read>
   <write>/u01/applications/reports_output</write>
</folderAccess>

With the Sub-Element <read> we can define to which directories the Reports Server got read access (multiple directories can be added separated with a semicolon) and the most important Sub-Element <write> defines to which directories the Reports Server got write access (multiple directories can be added separated with a semicolon). So an Oracle Reports Call with the option destype=file and desname=<target_output_dir> can only write output files to the defined write-Directory: no chance to damage other files outside this directory :-)

So, that's really a good reason to move to Oracle Reports 11g

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Security Hole in Fusion Middleware 11g WebLogic Admin Server

After a little bit playing with the new Fusion Middleware 11g I found a small security hole in the WebLogic Admin Server.

In order to start the WebLogic Admin Server Oracle provides you a shellscript $MW_HOME/user_projects/domains/$DOMAIN_NAME/startWebLogic.sh

The first way you can use this script is in an interactive way, just execute the script and it will prompt you for the WebLogic Admin-User and his Password. But this methode is not usefull for e.g. RunLevel Scripts :-)
So the second way is, you can buildup a wrapperscript in which you define two Variables (WLS_USER and WLS_PW for the WebLogic Admin-User and his Password) and execute out of this wrapperscript the startWebLogic.sh script to start the WebLogic Admin Server without prompting of the User and Password.

But be aware, if you use the second option, the WebLogic Admin-User and his Password will be displayed in cleartext in the ps-List :-(

In the last line of the ps-List you will see username=weblogic and password=oracle11g

To get out of this problem, just create under your directory $MW_HOME/user_projects/domains/$DOMAIN_NAME/servers/AdminServer/security a file named boot.properties with the content
username=your_admin_user
password=your_admin_user_password
and with this boot.properties file you will not be prompted for the WebLogic Admin-User and his Password and moreover it will not be displayed at the ps-List :-)