Capabilities
When capabilities are set for a binary, it means that the binary will be able to perform specific actions that it would not be able to perform without the capabilities.
Several Linux capabilities can be used to escalate a user's privileges to root
, including:
Capability
Desciption
cap_setuid
Allows a process to set its effective user ID, which can be used to gain the privileges of another user, including the root
user.
cap_setgid
Allows to set its effective group ID, which can be used to gain the privileges of another group, including the root
group.
cap_sys_admin
This capability provides a broad range of administrative privileges, including the ability to perform many actions reserved for the root
user, such as modifying system settings and mounting and unmounting file systems.
cap_dac_override
Allows bypassing of file read, write, and execute permission checks.
Here are some examples of values that we can use with the setcap
command, along with a brief description of what they do:
Capability Values
Description
=
This value sets the specified capability for the executable, but does not grant any privileges. This can be useful if we want to clear a previously set capability for the executable.
+ep
This value grants the effective and permitted privileges for the specified capability to the executable. This allows the executable to perform the actions that the capability allows but does not allow it to perform any actions that are not allowed by the capability.
+ei
This value grants sufficient and inheritable privileges for the specified capability to the executable. This allows the executable to perform the actions that the capability allows and child processes spawned by the executable to inherit the capability and perform the same actions.
+p
This value grants the permitted privileges for the specified capability to the executable. This allows the executable to perform the actions that the capability allows but does not allow it to perform any actions that are not allowed by the capability. This can be useful if we want to grant the capability to the executable but prevent it from inheriting the capability or allowing child processes to inherit it.
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