UTL_FILE and Security 9.2
- From: "Niall Litchfield" <n-litchfield@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 12:35:40 -0000
I seem to have spent this week doing some investigation into UTL_FILE
One of the oddities I came across, which is sort of documented in metalink note
196939.1 and a tar I raised.
From 9.2 you can use directory objects instead of UTL_FILE_DIR in init.ora.
There are 2 available permissions on directory objects which you can grant to
your users READ and WRITE. they do not do what one might expect. In particular
granting READ will allow the user to WRITE to that directory (assuming that
the account that is running oracle has the necessary os permissions) . granting
WRITE has no discernible effect at all, it certainly doesn't allow WRITES. The
explanation given to me by my support analyst, which I can sort of believe but
strikes me as coming from the department of WTF, is that WRITE only applies to
the external agent used for external tables, in otherwords you need the WRITE
priv only for the puposes of logging of discards etc for external tables. This
is as they say of the Monty Hall problem 'deeply counterintuitive'.
from 196939.1
UTL_FILE won't attempt to check for permission before executing an
open/read/write/delete
request. We expect that the operating system will deny the request where
appropriate. UTL_FILE will blindly issue any action requested and look for
success or failure return status from the operating system.
and
the DBA can control directory access by either (1) creating separate
directories for users with differing access requirements, or (2) use operating
system utilities and features for controling read and write access by users.
Option 1 seems to me in fact to be the only way to go, since AFAIK the os
request is actually executed in the context of the oracle/system os account. I
can't see how option 2 could be implemented even with externally identified
users.
Niall Litchfield
Oracle DBA
Audit Commission
+44 117 975 7805
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