Re: imap4d LIST and DELETE

[Alain Magloire]

> 
> 
> Is it right that issuing command
> 
>   a002 LIST "/" *
> 
> a user can receive the *whole* directory hierarchy on the server?

8-) Yes.

'*' is a metacharacter that also matches the hierarchy delimiter.
So yes if you do '/*', it will go to your entire file system.
Todo this the metacharacter '%' should be use, '%' does not match '/'.

> The rfc2060 seems to be somehow misty about it, but it seems to be
> a security compromise...

Agreed, it is unfortunate.  But remember in IMAP4, LIST was not really meant
to go through filesytems like '/bin/ls'.  You could want to this

        a00 LIST "" #comp.os.*

To have the entire comp.os hierarchy newsgroup.  Or the imapd server
could be on top of an SQL db, so:

        a00 LIST "/" *

may make sense.

But I agree it is a security concern, I've look at for example the c-client
imap4d  and its doing the same i.e. going through the entire filesystem.

So I'm not sure how to deal with this.

> Another security question: issuing
> 
>   a002 DELETE filename
> 
> deletes the `filename' even if it is not a valid maildrop. Is IMAP4
> supposed to operate on any regular files or just on maildrops? Maybe
> we would be better off restricting the critical operations (like DELETE)
> to valid maildrops only?

The question is how do you detect a valid mailbox?

        a001 CREATE filename
        a001 OK Create completed  // an empty file ?
        a002 DELETE filename
        ????
        a002 OK Delete completed

And you are allowed remove a hierarchy

       a001 DELETE /home/user/Mail/folder1/

We could restrict CREATE/DELETE/RENAME etc ... to /home/user/Mail/*
when accessing the filesystem?  But is that the right approach ?
is it not to restrictive?  Is there an actual benifice/advantage?

-- 
au revoir, alain
----
Aussi haut que l'on soit assis, on n'est toujours assis que sur son cul !!!