FM / pod

/usr/share/perl5/pod

Name	Size	Mode	Actions
perl.pod	16270	0644	edit dl rm
perl56delta.pod	107201	0644	edit dl rm
perl58delta.pod	115165	0644	edit dl rm
perl561delta.pod	124713	0644	edit dl rm
perl581delta.pod	38061	0644	edit dl rm
perl582delta.pod	4470	0644	edit dl rm
perl583delta.pod	6335	0644	edit dl rm
perl584delta.pod	7363	0644	edit dl rm
perl585delta.pod	5889	0644	edit dl rm
perl586delta.pod	4651	0644	edit dl rm
perl587delta.pod	8357	0644	edit dl rm
perl588delta.pod	25272	0644	edit dl rm
perl589delta.pod	53900	0644	edit dl rm
perl5004delta.pod	56240	0644	edit dl rm
perl5005delta.pod	34283	0644	edit dl rm
perl5100delta.pod	55535	0644	edit dl rm
perl5101delta.pod	43888	0644	edit dl rm
perl5120delta.pod	89272	0644	edit dl rm
perl5121delta.pod	10141	0644	edit dl rm
perl5122delta.pod	9603	0644	edit dl rm
perl5123delta.pod	4100	0644	edit dl rm
perl5124delta.pod	3672	0644	edit dl rm
perl5125delta.pod	7683	0644	edit dl rm
perl5140delta.pod	144324	0644	edit dl rm
perl5141delta.pod	7966	0644	edit dl rm
perl5142delta.pod	6892	0644	edit dl rm
perl5143delta.pod	7760	0644	edit dl rm
perl5144delta.pod	6327	0644	edit dl rm
perl5160delta.pod	133651	0644	edit dl rm
perl5161delta.pod	6142	0644	edit dl rm
perl5162delta.pod	3594	0644	edit dl rm
perl5163delta.pod	4085	0644	edit dl rm
perl5180delta.pod	119431	0644	edit dl rm
perl5181delta.pod	6595	0644	edit dl rm
perl5182delta.pod	5335	0644	edit dl rm
perl5184delta.pod	4642	0644	edit dl rm
perl5200delta.pod	115699	0644	edit dl rm
perl5201delta.pod	10899	0644	edit dl rm
perl5202delta.pod	12509	0644	edit dl rm
perl5203delta.pod	9392	0644	edit dl rm
perl5220delta.pod	130963	0644	edit dl rm
perl5221delta.pod	10767	0644	edit dl rm
perl5222delta.pod	12629	0644	edit dl rm
perl5223delta.pod	8456	0644	edit dl rm
perl5224delta.pod	4460	0644	edit dl rm
perl5240delta.pod	64927	0644	edit dl rm
perl5241delta.pod	8215	0644	edit dl rm
perl5242delta.pod	4113	0644	edit dl rm
perl5243delta.pod	11428	0644	edit dl rm
perl5244delta.pod	4510	0644	edit dl rm
perl5260delta.pod	101836	0644	edit dl rm
perl5261delta.pod	7927	0644	edit dl rm
perl5262delta.pod	7880	0644	edit dl rm
perl5263delta.pod	7063	0644	edit dl rm
perl5280delta.pod	72113	0644	edit dl rm
perlaix.pod	20437	0644	edit dl rm
perlamiga.pod	5749	0644	edit dl rm
perlandroid.pod	7871	0644	edit dl rm
perlapi.pod	443535	0644	edit dl rm
perlapio.pod	19285	0644	edit dl rm
perlartistic.pod	7010	0644	edit dl rm
perlbook.pod	8338	0644	edit dl rm
perlboot.pod	294	0644	edit dl rm
perlbot.pod	304	0644	edit dl rm
perlbs2000.pod	8058	0644	edit dl rm
perlcall.pod	56706	0644	edit dl rm
perlce.pod	14602	0644	edit dl rm
perlcheat.pod	4481	0644	edit dl rm
perlclib.pod	9619	0644	edit dl rm
perlcn.pod	4691	0644	edit dl rm
perlcommunity.pod	7217	0644	edit dl rm
perlcygwin.pod	27199	0644	edit dl rm
perldata.pod	46743	0644	edit dl rm
perldbmfilter.pod	4981	0644	edit dl rm
perldebguts.pod	38535	0644	edit dl rm
perldebtut.pod	22152	0644	edit dl rm
perldebug.pod	39258	0644	edit dl rm
perldelta.pod	7063	0644	edit dl rm
perldeprecation.pod	18169	0644	edit dl rm
perldiag.pod	284572	0644	edit dl rm
perldos.pod	10522	0644	edit dl rm
perldsc.pod	25614	0644	edit dl rm
perldtrace.pod	7958	0644	edit dl rm
perlebcdic.pod	84233	0644	edit dl rm
perlembed.pod	37196	0644	edit dl rm
perlexperiment.pod	7195	0644	edit dl rm
perlfork.pod	13355	0644	edit dl rm
perlform.pod	16608	0644	edit dl rm
perlfreebsd.pod	1610	0644	edit dl rm
perlfunc.pod	392957	0644	edit dl rm
perlgit.pod	33509	0644	edit dl rm
perlgpl.pod	13815	0644	edit dl rm
perlguts.pod	139329	0644	edit dl rm
perlhack.pod	40445	0644	edit dl rm
perlhacktips.pod	55509	0644	edit dl rm
perlhacktut.pod	6153	0644	edit dl rm
perlhaiku.pod	1508	0644	edit dl rm
perlhist.pod	53546	0644	edit dl rm
perlhpux.pod	30509	0644	edit dl rm
perlhurd.pod	1993	0644	edit dl rm
perlintern.pod	54572	0644	edit dl rm
perlinterp.pod	33687	0644	edit dl rm
perlintro.pod	22119	0644	edit dl rm
perliol.pod	34185	0644	edit dl rm
perlipc.pod	70829	0644	edit dl rm
perlirix.pod	4395	0644	edit dl rm
perljp.pod	7521	0644	edit dl rm
perlko.pod	12259	0644	edit dl rm
perllexwarn.pod	355	0644	edit dl rm
perllinux.pod	1488	0644	edit dl rm
perllocale.pod	68678	0644	edit dl rm
perllol.pod	9580	0644	edit dl rm
perlmacos.pod	1001	0644	edit dl rm
perlmacosx.pod	12060	0644	edit dl rm
perlmod.pod	26250	0644	edit dl rm
perlmodinstall.pod	12792	0644	edit dl rm
perlmodlib.pod	76482	0644	edit dl rm
perlmodstyle.pod	22575	0644	edit dl rm
perlmroapi.pod	3212	0644	edit dl rm
perlnetware.pod	6648	0644	edit dl rm
perlnewmod.pod	11036	0644	edit dl rm
perlnumber.pod	8353	0644	edit dl rm
perlobj.pod	35537	0644	edit dl rm
perlootut.pod	26783	0644	edit dl rm
perlop.pod	136252	0644	edit dl rm
perlopenbsd.pod	1204	0644	edit dl rm
perlopentut.pod	9455	0644	edit dl rm
perlos2.pod	93351	0644	edit dl rm
perlos390.pod	15674	0644	edit dl rm
perlos400.pod	4768	0644	edit dl rm
perlpacktut.pod	51282	0644	edit dl rm
perlperf.pod	49881	0644	edit dl rm
perlplan9.pod	5125	0644	edit dl rm
perlpod.pod	22196	0644	edit dl rm
perlpodspec.pod	68476	0644	edit dl rm
perlpolicy.pod	25629	0644	edit dl rm
perlport.pod	87602	0644	edit dl rm
perlpragma.pod	5176	0644	edit dl rm
perlqnx.pod	6673	0644	edit dl rm
perlre.pod	120901	0644	edit dl rm
perlreapi.pod	30334	0644	edit dl rm
perlrebackslash.pod	31817	0644	edit dl rm
perlrecharclass.pod	49029	0644	edit dl rm
perlref.pod	35304	0644	edit dl rm
perlreftut.pod	18790	0644	edit dl rm
perlreguts.pod	38328	0644	edit dl rm
perlrepository.pod	509	0644	edit dl rm
perlrequick.pod	18497	0644	edit dl rm
perlreref.pod	14744	0644	edit dl rm
perlretut.pod	121257	0644	edit dl rm
perlriscos.pod	1529	0644	edit dl rm
perlrun.pod	53550	0644	edit dl rm
perlsec.pod	26184	0644	edit dl rm
perlsolaris.pod	29822	0644	edit dl rm
perlsource.pod	6876	0644	edit dl rm
perlstyle.pod	8630	0644	edit dl rm
perlsub.pod	72967	0644	edit dl rm
perlsymbian.pod	15359	0644	edit dl rm
perlsyn.pod	44512	0644	edit dl rm
perlsynology.pod	7778	0644	edit dl rm
perlthrtut.pod	46459	0644	edit dl rm
perltie.pod	38607	0644	edit dl rm
perltoc.pod	694171	0644	edit dl rm
perltodo.pod	376	0644	edit dl rm
perltooc.pod	294	0644	edit dl rm
perltoot.pod	294	0644	edit dl rm
perltrap.pod	10620	0644	edit dl rm
perltru64.pod	8492	0644	edit dl rm
perltw.pod	4477	0644	edit dl rm
perlunicode.pod	82491	0644	edit dl rm
perlunicook.pod	25488	0644	edit dl rm
perlunifaq.pod	13647	0644	edit dl rm
perluniintro.pod	38340	0644	edit dl rm
perluniprops.pod	285306	0644	edit dl rm
perlunitut.pod	7951	0644	edit dl rm
perlutil.pod	7640	0644	edit dl rm
perlvar.pod	78364	0644	edit dl rm
perlvms.pod	50823	0644	edit dl rm
perlvos.pod	3843	0644	edit dl rm
perlwin32.pod	39298	0644	edit dl rm
perlxs.pod	78920	0644	edit dl rm
perlxstut.pod	50095	0644	edit dl rm
perlxstypemap.pod	24001	0644	edit dl rm

Edit: /usr/share/perl5/pod/perlsec.pod (26184B)

=head1 NAME

perlsec - Perl security

=head1 DESCRIPTION

Perl is designed to make it easy to program securely even when running
with extra privileges, like setuid or setgid programs.  Unlike most
command line shells, which are based on multiple substitution passes on
each line of the script, Perl uses a more conventional evaluation scheme
with fewer hidden snags.  Additionally, because the language has more
builtin functionality, it can rely less upon external (and possibly
untrustworthy) programs to accomplish its purposes.

=head1 SECURITY VULNERABILITY CONTACT INFORMATION

If you believe you have found a security vulnerability in Perl, please
email the details to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This creates a new
Request Tracker ticket in a special queue which isn't initially publicly
accessible. The email will also be copied to a closed subscription
unarchived mailing list which includes all the core committers, who will
be able to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and
help co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem
across all platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this
address for security issues in the Perl core, not for modules
independently distributed on CPAN.

When sending an initial request to the security email address, please
don't Cc any other parties, because if they reply to all, the reply will
generate yet another new ticket. Once you have received an initial reply
with a C<[perl #NNNNNN]> ticket number in  the headline, it's okay to Cc
subsequent replies to third parties: all emails to the
perl5-security-report address with the ticket number in the subject line
will be added to the ticket; without it, a new ticket will be created.

=head1 SECURITY MECHANISMS AND CONCERNS

=head2 Taint mode

Perl automatically enables a set of special security checks, called I<taint
mode>, when it detects its program running with differing real and effective
user or group IDs.  The setuid bit in Unix permissions is mode 04000, the
setgid bit mode 02000; either or both may be set.  You can also enable taint
mode explicitly by using the B<-T> command line flag.  This flag is
I<strongly> suggested for server programs and any program run on behalf of
someone else, such as a CGI script.  Once taint mode is on, it's on for
the remainder of your script.

While in this mode, Perl takes special precautions called I<taint
checks> to prevent both obvious and subtle traps.  Some of these checks
are reasonably simple, such as verifying that path directories aren't
writable by others; careful programmers have always used checks like
these.  Other checks, however, are best supported by the language itself,
and it is these checks especially that contribute to making a set-id Perl
program more secure than the corresponding C program.

You may not use data derived from outside your program to affect
something else outside your program--at least, not by accident.  All
command line arguments, environment variables, locale information (see
L<perllocale>), results of certain system calls (C<readdir()>,
C<readlink()>, the variable of C<shmread()>, the messages returned by
C<msgrcv()>, the password, gcos and shell fields returned by the
C<getpwxxx()> calls), and all file input are marked as "tainted".
Tainted data may not be used directly or indirectly in any command
that invokes a sub-shell, nor in any command that modifies files,
directories, or processes, B<with the following exceptions>:

=over 4

=item *

Arguments to C<print> and C<syswrite> are B<not> checked for taintedness.

=item *

Symbolic methods

$obj->$method(@args);

and symbolic sub references

&{$foo}(@args);
    $foo->(@args);

are not checked for taintedness.  This requires extra carefulness
unless you want external data to affect your control flow.  Unless
you carefully limit what these symbolic values are, people are able
to call functions B<outside> your Perl code, such as POSIX::system,
in which case they are able to run arbitrary external code.

=item *

Hash keys are B<never> tainted.

=back

For efficiency reasons, Perl takes a conservative view of
whether data is tainted.  If an expression contains tainted data,
any subexpression may be considered tainted, even if the value
of the subexpression is not itself affected by the tainted data.

Because taintedness is associated with each scalar value, some
elements of an array or hash can be tainted and others not.
The keys of a hash are B<never> tainted.

For example:

$arg = shift;		# $arg is tainted
    $hid = $arg . 'bar';	# $hid is also tainted
    $line = <>;			# Tainted
    $line = <STDIN>;		# Also tainted
    open FOO, "/home/me/bar" or die $!;
    $line = <FOO>;		# Still tainted
    $path = $ENV{'PATH'};	# Tainted, but see below
    $data = 'abc';		# Not tainted

system "echo $arg";		# Insecure
    system "/bin/echo", $arg;	# Considered insecure
				# (Perl doesn't know about /bin/echo)
    system "echo $hid";		# Insecure
    system "echo $data";	# Insecure until PATH set

$path = $ENV{'PATH'};	# $path now tainted

$ENV{'PATH'} = '/bin:/usr/bin';
    delete @ENV{'IFS', 'CDPATH', 'ENV', 'BASH_ENV'};

$path = $ENV{'PATH'};	# $path now NOT tainted
    system "echo $data";	# Is secure now!

open(FOO, "< $arg");	# OK - read-only file
    open(FOO, "> $arg"); 	# Not OK - trying to write

open(FOO,"echo $arg|");	# Not OK
    open(FOO,"-|")
	or exec 'echo', $arg;	# Also not OK

$shout = `echo $arg`;	# Insecure, $shout now tainted

unlink $data, $arg;		# Insecure
    umask $arg;			# Insecure

exec "echo $arg";		# Insecure
    exec "echo", $arg;		# Insecure
    exec "sh", '-c', $arg;	# Very insecure!

@files = <*.c>;		# insecure (uses readdir() or similar)
    @files = glob('*.c');	# insecure (uses readdir() or similar)

# In either case, the results of glob are tainted, since the list of
    # filenames comes from outside of the program.

$bad = ($arg, 23);		# $bad will be tainted
    $arg, `true`;		# Insecure (although it isn't really)

If you try to do something insecure, you will get a fatal error saying
something like "Insecure dependency" or "Insecure $ENV{PATH}".

The exception to the principle of "one tainted value taints the whole
expression" is with the ternary conditional operator C<?:>.  Since code
with a ternary conditional

$result = $tainted_value ? "Untainted" : "Also untainted";

is effectively

if ( $tainted_value ) {
        $result = "Untainted";
    } else {
        $result = "Also untainted";
    }

it doesn't make sense for C<$result> to be tainted.

=head2 Laundering and Detecting Tainted Data

To test whether a variable contains tainted data, and whose use would
thus trigger an "Insecure dependency" message, you can use the
C<tainted()> function of the Scalar::Util module, available in your
nearby CPAN mirror, and included in Perl starting from the release 5.8.0.
Or you may be able to use the following C<is_tainted()> function.

sub is_tainted {
        local $@;   # Don't pollute caller's value.
        return ! eval { eval("#" . substr(join("", @_), 0, 0)); 1 };
    }

This function makes use of the fact that the presence of tainted data
anywhere within an expression renders the entire expression tainted.  It
would be inefficient for every operator to test every argument for
taintedness.  Instead, the slightly more efficient and conservative
approach is used that if any tainted value has been accessed within the
same expression, the whole expression is considered tainted.

But testing for taintedness gets you only so far.  Sometimes you have just
to clear your data's taintedness.  Values may be untainted by using them
as keys in a hash; otherwise the only way to bypass the tainting
mechanism is by referencing subpatterns from a regular expression match.
Perl presumes that if you reference a substring using $1, $2, etc. in a
non-tainting pattern, that
you knew what you were doing when you wrote that pattern.  That means using
a bit of thought--don't just blindly untaint anything, or you defeat the
entire mechanism.  It's better to verify that the variable has only good
characters (for certain values of "good") rather than checking whether it
has any bad characters.  That's because it's far too easy to miss bad
characters that you never thought of.

Here's a test to make sure that the data contains nothing but "word"
characters (alphabetics, numerics, and underscores), a hyphen, an at sign,
or a dot.

if ($data =~ /^([-\@\w.]+)$/) {
	$data = $1; 			# $data now untainted
    } else {
	die "Bad data in '$data'"; 	# log this somewhere
    }

This is fairly secure because C</\w+/> doesn't normally match shell
metacharacters, nor are dot, dash, or at going to mean something special
to the shell.  Use of C</.+/> would have been insecure in theory because
it lets everything through, but Perl doesn't check for that.  The lesson
is that when untainting, you must be exceedingly careful with your patterns.
Laundering data using regular expression is the I<only> mechanism for
untainting dirty data, unless you use the strategy detailed below to fork
a child of lesser privilege.

The example does not untaint C<$data> if C<use locale> is in effect,
because the characters matched by C<\w> are determined by the locale.
Perl considers that locale definitions are untrustworthy because they
contain data from outside the program.  If you are writing a
locale-aware program, and want to launder data with a regular expression
containing C<\w>, put C<no locale> ahead of the expression in the same
block.  See L<perllocale/SECURITY> for further discussion and examples.

=head2 Switches On the "#!" Line

When you make a script executable, in order to make it usable as a
command, the system will pass switches to perl from the script's #!
line.  Perl checks that any command line switches given to a setuid
(or setgid) script actually match the ones set on the #! line.  Some
Unix and Unix-like environments impose a one-switch limit on the #!
line, so you may need to use something like C<-wU> instead of C<-w -U>
under such systems.  (This issue should arise only in Unix or
Unix-like environments that support #! and setuid or setgid scripts.)

=head2 Taint mode and @INC

When the taint mode (C<-T>) is in effect, the "." directory is removed
from C<@INC>, and the environment variables C<PERL5LIB> and C<PERLLIB>
are ignored by Perl.  You can still adjust C<@INC> from outside the
program by using the C<-I> command line option as explained in
L<perlrun>.  The two environment variables are ignored because
they are obscured, and a user running a program could be unaware that
they are set, whereas the C<-I> option is clearly visible and
therefore permitted.

Another way to modify C<@INC> without modifying the program, is to use
the C<lib> pragma, e.g.:

perl -Mlib=/foo program

The benefit of using C<-Mlib=/foo> over C<-I/foo>, is that the former
will automagically remove any duplicated directories, while the latter
will not.

Note that if a tainted string is added to C<@INC>, the following
problem will be reported:

Insecure dependency in require while running with -T switch

=head2 Cleaning Up Your Path

For "Insecure C<$ENV{PATH}>" messages, you need to set C<$ENV{'PATH'}> to
a known value, and each directory in the path must be absolute and
non-writable by others than its owner and group.  You may be surprised to
get this message even if the pathname to your executable is fully
qualified.  This is I<not> generated because you didn't supply a full path
to the program; instead, it's generated because you never set your PATH
environment variable, or you didn't set it to something that was safe.
Because Perl can't guarantee that the executable in question isn't itself
going to turn around and execute some other program that is dependent on
your PATH, it makes sure you set the PATH.

The PATH isn't the only environment variable which can cause problems.
Because some shells may use the variables IFS, CDPATH, ENV, and
BASH_ENV, Perl checks that those are either empty or untainted when
starting subprocesses.  You may wish to add something like this to your
setid and taint-checking scripts.

delete @ENV{qw(IFS CDPATH ENV BASH_ENV)};   # Make %ENV safer

It's also possible to get into trouble with other operations that don't
care whether they use tainted values.  Make judicious use of the file
tests in dealing with any user-supplied filenames.  When possible, do
opens and such B<after> properly dropping any special user (or group!)
privileges.  Perl doesn't prevent you from
opening tainted filenames for reading,
so be careful what you print out.  The tainting mechanism is intended to
prevent stupid mistakes, not to remove the need for thought.

Perl does not call the shell to expand wild cards when you pass C<system>
and C<exec> explicit parameter lists instead of strings with possible shell
wildcards in them.  Unfortunately, the C<open>, C<glob>, and
backtick functions provide no such alternate calling convention, so more
subterfuge will be required.

Perl provides a reasonably safe way to open a file or pipe from a setuid
or setgid program: just create a child process with reduced privilege who
does the dirty work for you.  First, fork a child using the special
C<open> syntax that connects the parent and child by a pipe.  Now the
child resets its ID set and any other per-process attributes, like
environment variables, umasks, current working directories, back to the
originals or known safe values.  Then the child process, which no longer
has any special permissions, does the C<open> or other system call.
Finally, the child passes the data it managed to access back to the
parent.  Because the file or pipe was opened in the child while running
under less privilege than the parent, it's not apt to be tricked into
doing something it shouldn't.

Here's a way to do backticks reasonably safely.  Notice how the C<exec> is
not called with a string that the shell could expand.  This is by far the
best way to call something that might be subjected to shell escapes: just
never call the shell at all.

use English;
        die "Can't fork: $!" unless defined($pid = open(KID, "-|"));
        if ($pid) {           # parent
            while (<KID>) {
                # do something
            }
            close KID;
        } else {
            my @temp     = ($EUID, $EGID);
            my $orig_uid = $UID;
            my $orig_gid = $GID;
            $EUID = $UID;
            $EGID = $GID;
            # Drop privileges
            $UID  = $orig_uid;
            $GID  = $orig_gid;
            # Make sure privs are really gone
            ($EUID, $EGID) = @temp;
            die "Can't drop privileges"
                unless $UID == $EUID  && $GID eq $EGID;
            $ENV{PATH} = "/bin:/usr/bin"; # Minimal PATH.
	    # Consider sanitizing the environment even more.
            exec 'myprog', 'arg1', 'arg2'
                or die "can't exec myprog: $!";
        }

A similar strategy would work for wildcard expansion via C<glob>, although
you can use C<readdir> instead.

Taint checking is most useful when although you trust yourself not to have
written a program to give away the farm, you don't necessarily trust those
who end up using it not to try to trick it into doing something bad.  This
is the kind of security checking that's useful for set-id programs and
programs launched on someone else's behalf, like CGI programs.

This is quite different, however, from not even trusting the writer of the
code not to try to do something evil.  That's the kind of trust needed
when someone hands you a program you've never seen before and says, "Here,
run this."  For that kind of safety, you might want to check out the Safe
module, included standard in the Perl distribution.  This module allows the
programmer to set up special compartments in which all system operations
are trapped and namespace access is carefully controlled.  Safe should
not be considered bullet-proof, though: it will not prevent the foreign
code to set up infinite loops, allocate gigabytes of memory, or even
abusing perl bugs to make the host interpreter crash or behave in
unpredictable ways.  In any case it's better avoided completely if you're
really concerned about security.

=head2 Security Bugs

Beyond the obvious problems that stem from giving special privileges to
systems as flexible as scripts, on many versions of Unix, set-id scripts
are inherently insecure right from the start.  The problem is a race
condition in the kernel.  Between the time the kernel opens the file to
see which interpreter to run and when the (now-set-id) interpreter turns
around and reopens the file to interpret it, the file in question may have
changed, especially if you have symbolic links on your system.

Fortunately, sometimes this kernel "feature" can be disabled.
Unfortunately, there are two ways to disable it.  The system can simply
outlaw scripts with any set-id bit set, which doesn't help much.
Alternately, it can simply ignore the set-id bits on scripts.

However, if the kernel set-id script feature isn't disabled, Perl will
complain loudly that your set-id script is insecure.  You'll need to
either disable the kernel set-id script feature, or put a C wrapper around
the script.  A C wrapper is just a compiled program that does nothing
except call your Perl program.   Compiled programs are not subject to the
kernel bug that plagues set-id scripts.  Here's a simple wrapper, written
in C:

#include <unistd.h>
    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <string.h>
    #include <errno.h>

#define REAL_PATH "/path/to/script"

int main(int argc, char **argv)
    {
        execv(REAL_PATH, argv);
        fprintf(stderr, "%s: %s: %s\n",
                        argv[0], REAL_PATH, strerror(errno));
        return 127;
    }

Compile this wrapper into a binary executable and then make I<it> rather
than your script setuid or setgid.

In recent years, vendors have begun to supply systems free of this
inherent security bug.  On such systems, when the kernel passes the name
of the set-id script to open to the interpreter, rather than using a
pathname subject to meddling, it instead passes I</dev/fd/3>.  This is a
special file already opened on the script, so that there can be no race
condition for evil scripts to exploit.  On these systems, Perl should be
compiled with C<-DSETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW>.  The F<Configure>
program that builds Perl tries to figure this out for itself, so you
should never have to specify this yourself.  Most modern releases of
SysVr4 and BSD 4.4 use this approach to avoid the kernel race condition.

=head2 Protecting Your Programs

There are a number of ways to hide the source to your Perl programs,
with varying levels of "security".

First of all, however, you I<can't> take away read permission, because
the source code has to be readable in order to be compiled and
interpreted.  (That doesn't mean that a CGI script's source is
readable by people on the web, though.)  So you have to leave the
permissions at the socially friendly 0755 level.  This lets 
people on your local system only see your source.

Some people mistakenly regard this as a security problem.  If your program does
insecure things, and relies on people not knowing how to exploit those
insecurities, it is not secure.  It is often possible for someone to
determine the insecure things and exploit them without viewing the
source.  Security through obscurity, the name for hiding your bugs
instead of fixing them, is little security indeed.

You can try using encryption via source filters (Filter::* from CPAN,
or Filter::Util::Call and Filter::Simple since Perl 5.8).
But crackers might be able to decrypt it.  You can try using the byte
code compiler and interpreter described below, but crackers might be
able to de-compile it.  You can try using the native-code compiler
described below, but crackers might be able to disassemble it.  These
pose varying degrees of difficulty to people wanting to get at your
code, but none can definitively conceal it (this is true of every
language, not just Perl).

If you're concerned about people profiting from your code, then the
bottom line is that nothing but a restrictive license will give you
legal security.  License your software and pepper it with threatening
statements like "This is unpublished proprietary software of XYZ Corp.
Your access to it does not give you permission to use it blah blah
blah."  You should see a lawyer to be sure your license's wording will
stand up in court.

=head2 Unicode

Unicode is a new and complex technology and one may easily overlook
certain security pitfalls.  See L<perluniintro> for an overview and
L<perlunicode> for details, and L<perlunicode/"Security Implications
of Unicode"> for security implications in particular.

=head2 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks

Certain internal algorithms used in the implementation of Perl can
be attacked by choosing the input carefully to consume large amounts
of either time or space or both.  This can lead into the so-called
I<Denial of Service> (DoS) attacks.

=over 4

=item *

Hash Algorithm - Hash algorithms like the one used in Perl are well
known to be vulnerable to collision attacks on their hash function.
Such attacks involve constructing a set of keys which collide into
the same bucket producing inefficient behavior.  Such attacks often
depend on discovering the seed of the hash function used to map the
keys to buckets.  That seed is then used to brute-force a key set which
can be used to mount a denial of service attack.  In Perl 5.8.1 changes
were introduced to harden Perl to such attacks, and then later in
Perl 5.18.0 these features were enhanced and additional protections
added.

At the time of this writing, Perl 5.18.0 is considered to be
well-hardened against algorithmic complexity attacks on its hash
implementation.  This is largely owed to the following measures
mitigate attacks:

=over 4

=item Hash Seed Randomization

In order to make it impossible to know what seed to generate an attack
key set for, this seed is randomly initialized at process start.  This
may be overridden by using the PERL_HASH_SEED environment variable, see
L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED>.  This environment variable controls how
items are actually stored, not how they are presented via
C<keys>, C<values> and C<each>.

=item Hash Traversal Randomization

Independent of which seed is used in the hash function, C<keys>,
C<values>, and C<each> return items in a per-hash randomized order.
Modifying a hash by insertion will change the iteration order of that hash.
This behavior can be overridden by using C<hash_traversal_mask()> from
L<Hash::Util> or by using the PERL_PERTURB_KEYS environment variable,
see L<perlrun/PERL_PERTURB_KEYS>.  Note that this feature controls the
"visible" order of the keys, and not the actual order they are stored in.

=item Bucket Order Perturbance

When items collide into a given hash bucket the order they are stored in
the chain is no longer predictable in Perl 5.18.  This
has the intention to make it harder to observe a
collision.  This behavior can be overridden by using
the PERL_PERTURB_KEYS environment variable, see L<perlrun/PERL_PERTURB_KEYS>.

=item New Default Hash Function

The default hash function has been modified with the intention of making
it harder to infer the hash seed.

=item Alternative Hash Functions

The source code includes multiple hash algorithms to choose from.  While we
believe that the default perl hash is robust to attack, we have included the
hash function Siphash as a fall-back option.  At the time of release of
Perl 5.18.0 Siphash is believed to be of cryptographic strength.  This is
not the default as it is much slower than the default hash.

=back

Without compiling a special Perl, there is no way to get the exact same
behavior of any versions prior to Perl 5.18.0.  The closest one can get
is by setting PERL_PERTURB_KEYS to 0 and setting the PERL_HASH_SEED
to a known value.  We do not advise those settings for production use
due to the above security considerations.

B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and
the ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of
Perl 5.  Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and continues
to be, affected by the insertion order and the history of changes made
to the hash over its lifetime.

Also note that while the order of the hash elements might be
randomized, this "pseudo-ordering" should B<not> be used for
applications like shuffling a list randomly (use C<List::Util::shuffle()>
for that, see L<List::Util>, a standard core module since Perl 5.8.0;
or the CPAN module C<Algorithm::Numerical::Shuffle>), or for generating
permutations (use e.g. the CPAN modules C<Algorithm::Permute> or
C<Algorithm::FastPermute>), or for any cryptographic applications.

Tied hashes may have their own ordering and algorithmic complexity
attacks.

=item *

Regular expressions - Perl's regular expression engine is so called NFA
(Non-deterministic Finite Automaton), which among other things means that
it can rather easily consume large amounts of both time and space if the
regular expression may match in several ways.  Careful crafting of the
regular expressions can help but quite often there really isn't much
one can do (the book "Mastering Regular Expressions" is required
reading, see L<perlfaq2>).  Running out of space manifests itself by
Perl running out of memory.

=item *

Sorting - the quicksort algorithm used in Perls before 5.8.0 to
implement the sort() function is very easy to trick into misbehaving
so that it consumes a lot of time.  Starting from Perl 5.8.0 a different
sorting algorithm, mergesort, is used by default.  Mergesort cannot
misbehave on any input.

=back

See L<https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/sec03/tech/full_papers/crosby/crosby.pdf> for more information,
and any computer science textbook on algorithmic complexity.

=head1 SEE ALSO

L<perlrun> for its description of cleaning up environment variables.

cmd: