Security Extension Specification
X Consortium Standard
X Version 11, Release 6.8
November 15, 1996
DavidWiggins
X Consortium Standard
1996X Consortium
Version 7.1
X Consortium
X Version 11, Release 6.8
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE X CONSORTIUM BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
Except as contained in this notice, the name of the X Consortium shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written authorization from the X Consortium.
Introduction
The Security extension contains new protocol needed to provide enhanced X
server security. The Security extension should not be exposed to untrusted
clients (defined below).
Requests
SecurityQueryVersion
This request returns the major and minor version numbers of this extension.
SecurityQueryVersion
client-major-version
CARD16
client-minor-version
CARD16
=>
server-major-version
CARD16
server-minor-version
CARD16
The client-major-version and client-minor-version numbers indicate what
version of the protocol the client wants the server to implement. The
server-major-version and the server-minor-version numbers returned
indicate the protocol this extension actually supports. This might not
equal the version sent by the client. An implementation can (but need not)
support more than one version simultaneously. The server-major-version
and server-minor-version allow the creation of future revisions of the
Security protocol that may be necessary. In general, the major version
would increment for incompatible changes, and the minor version would
increment for small, upward-compatible changes. Servers that support
the protocol defined in this document will return a server-major-version
of one (1), and a server-minor-version of zero (0).
Clients using the Security extension must issue a SecurityQueryVersion
request before any other Security request in order to negotiate a compatible
protocol version; otherwise, the client will get undefined behavior
(Security may or may not work).
SecurityGenerateAuthorization
This request causes the server to create and return a new authorization with
specific characteristics. Clients can subsequently connect using the new
authorization and will inherit some of the characteristics of the
authorization.
SecurityGenerateAuthorization
authorization-protocol-name
STRING8
authorization-protocol-data
STRING8
value-mask
BITMASK
value-list
LISTofVALUE
=>
authorization-id
AUTHID
authorization-data-return
STRING8
Errors: AuthorizationProtocol, Value, Alloc
authorization-protocol-name is the name of the authorization method for
which the server should generate a new authorization that subsequent
clients can use to connect to the server. If the authorization-protocol-name
is not one that the server supports, or if authorization-protocol-data
does not make sense for the given authorization-protocol-name, an
AuthorizationProtocol error results.
authorization-protocol-data is authorization-method specific data that can
be used in some way to generate the authorization.
In this version of the extension, the only authorization method
required to be supported is "MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1" with any amount
of authorization-protocol-data (including none). The server may use the
authorization-protocol-data as an additional source of randomness used
to generate the authorization. Other authorization methods can supply
their own interpretation of authorization-protocol-data.
The value-mask and value-list specify attributes of the authorization
that are to be explicitly initialized. The possible values are:
Attribute
Type
Default
timeout
CARD32
60
group
XID or None
None
trust-level
{SecurityClientTrusted,
SecurityClientUntrusted}
SecurityClientUntrusted
event-mask
SecurityAuthorizationRevoked,
or None
None
timeout is the timeout period in seconds for this authorization. A
timeout value of zero means this authorization will never expire. For
non-zero timeout values, when timeout seconds have elapsed since the
last time that the authorization entered the state of having no
connections authorized by it, and if no new connections used the
authorization during that time, the authorization is automatically purged.
(Note that when an authorization is created, it enters the state of having no
connections authorized by it.) Subsequent connection attempts using that
authorization will fail. This is to facilitate "fire and forget" launching of
applications.
group is an application group ID as defined by the Application Group
extension, or None. Any other values will cause a Value error. When a
group is destroyed, all authorizations specifying that group are revoked
as described under the SecurityRevokeAuthorization request. The Application
Group extension attaches additional semantics to the group.
trust-level tells whether clients using the authorization are trusted or
untrusted. If trust-level is not one of the constants SecurityClientTrusted
or SecurityClientUntrusted, a Value error results.
event-mask defines which events the client is interested in for this
authorization. When the authorization expires or is revoked if event-mask
contains SecurityAuthorizationRevoked a SecurityAuthorizationRevoked event
is reported to the client.
The SecurityAuthorizationRevoked event contains the following field:
Field
Type
authorization-id
AUTHID
where authorization-id is the identification of the authorization that was
revoked.
If an invalid value-mask is specified, a Value error occurs.
The returned authorization-id is a non-zero value that uniquely identifies
this authorization for use in other requests. The value space for type
AUTHID is not required to be disjoint from values spaces of other core
X types, e.g. resource ids, atoms, visual ids, and keysyms. Thus, a given
numeric value might be both a valid AUTHID and a valid atom, for example.
authorization-data-return is the data that a client should use in some
authorization-method-specific way to make a connection with this
authorization. For "MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1," authorization-data-return should
be sent as the authorization-protocol-data in the connection setup message.
It is not required that other authorization methods use
authorization-data-return this way.
SecurityRevokeAuthorization
This request deletes an authorization created by SecurityGenerateAuthorization.
SecurityRevokeAuthorization
authorization-id
AUTHID
Errors: Authorization
If authorization-id does not name a valid authorization, an Authorization
error occurs. Otherwise, this request kills all clients currently connected
using the authorization specified by authorization-id. The authorization is
deleted from the server's database, so future attempts by clients to connect
with this authorization will fail.
Changes to Core Requests
A server supporting this extension modifies the handling of some core
requests in the following ways.
Resource ID Usage
If an untrusted client makes a request that specifies a resource ID that is
not owned by another untrusted client, a protocol error is sent to the
requesting client indicating that the specified resource does not exist.
The following exceptions apply. An untrusted client can:
use the QueryTree, GetGeometry, and TranslateCoordinates requests
without restriction.
use colormap IDs that are returned in the default-colormap field of its
connection setup information in any colormap requests.
specify a root window as:
the drawable field of CreatePixmap, CreateGC, and QueryBestSize.
the parent field of CreateWindow.
the window field of CreateColormap, ListProperties, and GetWindowAttributes.
the grab-window or confine-to fields of GrabPointer.
the grab-window field of UngrabButton.
the destination of SendEvent, but only if all of the following are true.
(These conditions cover all the events that the ICCCM specifies with
a root window destination.)
The propogate field of SendEvent is False.
The event-mask field of SendEvent is ColormapChange,
StructureNotify, or the logical OR of SubstructureRedirect with
SubstructureNotify.
The event type being sent is UnmapNotify, ConfigureRequest, or
ClientMessage.
the window field of ChangeWindowAttributes, but only if the value-mask
contains only event-mask and the corresponding value is StructureNotify,
PropertyChange, or the logical OR of both.
ISSUE: are root window exceptions needed for these? WarpPointer, ReparentWindow
(parent), CirculateWindow, QueryPointer (emacs does this), GetMotionEvents.
Extension Security
This extension introduces the notion of secure and insecure extensions. A
secure extension is believed to be safe to use by untrusted clients; that
is, there are no significant security concerns known that an untrusted
client could use to destroy, modify, or steal data of trusted clients. This
belief may be founded on a careful analysis of the extension protocol,
its implementation, and measures taken to "harden" the extension to close
security weaknesses. All extensions not considered secure are called
insecure. The implementation details of how an extension is identified as
secure or insecure are beyond the scope of this specification.
ListExtensions will only return names of secure
extensions to untrusted clients.
If an untrusted client uses QueryExtension on an
insecure extension that the server supports, the reply will have the
present field set to False and the major-opcode field set to zero to
indicate that the extension is not supported.
If an untrusted client successfully guesses the major opcode of an
insecure extension, attempts by it to execute requests with that major
opcode will fail with a Request error.
Keyboard Security
The protocol interpretation changes in this section are intended to prevent
untrusted applications from stealing keyboard input that was meant for
trusted clients and to prevent them from interfering with the use of the
keyboard.
The behavior of some keyboard-related requests and events is modified when
the client is untrusted depending on certain server state at the time of
request execution or event generation. Specifically, if a hypothetical
keyboard event were generated given the current input focus, pointer
position, keyboard grab state, and window event selections, and if that
keyboard event would not be delivered to any untrusted client, the
following changes apply:
The bit vector representing the up/down state of the keys returned by
QueryKeymap and
KeymapNotify is all zeroes.
GrabKeyboard returns a status of AlreadyGrabbed.
SetInputFocus does nothing. Note that this means the
Globally Active
Input and WM_TAKE_FOCUS mechanisms specified in the ICCCM will
not work with untrusted clients.
Passive grabs established by GrabKey that would otherwise have activated
do not activate.
If an untrusted client attempts to use any of the following requests, the
only effect is that the client receives an Access error: SetModifierMapping,
ChangeKeyboardMapping, ChangeKeyboardControl.
If an InputOnly window owned by an untrusted client has a parent owned by a
trusted client, all attempts to map the window will be ignored. This includes
mapping attempts resulting from MapWindow, MapSubwindows, ReparentWindow,
and save-set processing.
However, if the parent of an InputOnly window owned by an untrusted client
is the root window, attempts to map that window will be performed as
expected. This is in line with the root window exceptions above.
Image Security
It should be impossible for an untrusted client to retrieve the image
contents of a trusted window unless a trusted client takes action to allow
this. We introduce the following defenses in support of this requirement.
The restrictions on resource ID usage listed above prevent untrusted clients
from using GetImage directly on windows not belonging to trusted clients.
If an untrusted client tries to set the background-pixmap attribute of an
untrusted window to None, the server will instead use a server-dependent
background which must be different than None.
The X protocol description of GetImage states that the
returned contents of regions of a window obscured by noninferior windows are
undefined if the window has no backing store. Some implementations return the
contents of the obscuring windows in these regions. When an untrusted client
uses GetImage, this behavior is forbidden; the server must
fill the obscured regions in the returned image with a server-dependent pattern.
If an untrusted window has trusted inferiors, their contents are vulnerable
to theft via GetImage on the untrusted parent, as well
as being vulnerable to destruction via drawing with subwindow-mode
IncludeInferiors on the untrusted parent. An untrusted window having trusted
inferiors can only occur at the request of a trusted client. It is expected
to be an unusual configuration.
Property Security
Unlike the other security provisions described in this document, security for
property access is not amenable to a fixed policy because properties are
used for inter-client communication in diverse ways and may contain data of
varying degrees of sensitivity. Therefore, we only list the possible
restrictions the server may decide to impose on use of properties on trusted
windows by untrusted clients. How the server chooses which restrictions from
this list to apply to a particular property access is implementation dependent
In the X Consortium server implementation, property access is controlled by
a configuration file; see the -sp option in the Xserver(1) manual page.
.
The X Protocol property requests are
ChangeProperty,
GetProperty,
DeleteProperty,
RotateProperties, and
ListProperties. For these requests, the server can
allow the request to execute normally (as if it had been issued by a
trusted client), ignore the request completely (as if it were a NoOperation),
or ignore the request except to send an Atom error to the client. Ignoring
a ListProperties request means replying that
the window has no properties. ListProperties may also
reply with a subset of the existing properties if the server is doing
property hiding; see below. An ignored GetProperty
request may reply that the property does not exist, or that it exists but
contains no data.
The server may decide to hide certain properties on certain windows from
untrusted clients
The X Consortium server implementation does not currently provide a way to
hide properties.
.
If a property is to be hidden, it must be done consistently to avoid
confusing clients. This means that for untrusted clients:
That property should not be returned by
ListProperties.
PropertyNotify events should not be sent for that
property.
GetProperty on that property should reply that the
property does not exist (the return type is None, the format and
bytes-after are zero, and the value is empty).
For a property that the server is protecting but not hiding, consistency
must also be maintained:
That property should be returned by ListProperties.
PropertyNotify events should be sent for that property.
GetProperty on that property should reply that the
property exists (if it really does) but the value is empty
(return type and format are their real values, and the "length of value"
field in the reply is zero).
Miscellaneous Security
If an untrusted client attempts to use
ChangeHosts,
ListHosts, or
SetAccessControl,
the only effect is that the client receives an Access error.
If an untrusted client attempts to use ConvertSelection
on a selection with a trusted selection owner window, the server generates
a SelectionNotify event to the requestor with property None.
New Authorization Method
This extension includes a new authorization method named
"XC-QUERY-SECURITY-1". Its purpose is to allow an external agent such as
the X firewall proxy to probe an X server to determine whether that server
meets certain security criteria without requiring the agent to have its
own authorization for that server. The agent may use the returned information
to make a decision. For example, the X firewall proxy may choose not to
forward client connections to servers that do not meet the criteria.
To use this authorization method, the client (or proxy) sends
"XC-QUERY-SECURITY-1" as the authorization-protocol-name in the initial
connection setup message. The authorization-protocol-data may be empty or
may contain additional security criteria desribed below. If the success
field of the server's reply is Authenticate, the server supports the
security extension, and the server meets all specified additional security
criteria. In this case, the client should resend the initial connection
setup message substituting the authorization protocol name and data
that should be used to authorize the connection. If the success field of the
server's reply is anything other than Authenticate, either the server does not
support the security extension, does not meet (or cannot determine if it
meets) all of the additional security criteria, or chooses for internal reasons
not to answer with Authenticate. In this case, the client should close the
connection.
If the authorization-protocol-data sent with "XC-QUERY-SECURITY-1" is not
empty, it specifies additional security criteria for the server to check, as
follows.
authorization-protocol-data
policy-mask
BITMASK
policies
LISTofSECURITYPOLICY
The policy-mask field is any logical-OR combination of the constants
Extensions and SitePolicies. For each bit set in policy-mask, there is a
SECURITYPOLICY element in policies. The nth element in policies corresponds
to the nth 1-bit in policy-mask, counting upward from bit 0.
SECURITYPOLICY
policy-type
{Disallow, Permit}
names
LISTofSTR
For a SECURITYPOLICY corresponding to policy-mask Extensions, if
policy-type is Disallow the server is required to consider as insecure
all extensions given in names. No policy is specified for extensions
not listed in names. If policy-type is Permit the server may consider
only those extensions given in names to be secure; all other extensions
must be treated as insecure. If these constraints are not met, the server
should not return Authenticate in the success field of the reply.
Servers can but need not dynamically configure themselves in response
to an Extensions SECURITYPOLICY; a conforming server might simply compare
the policy with a compiled-in table of extensions and their security status.
For a SECURITYPOLICY corresponding to policy-mask SitePolicies, policy-type
Disallow means the server must not have been configured with any of the site
policies given in names. Policy-type Permit means the server must have
been configured with at least one of the site policies given in names. If
these constraints are not met, the server should not return Authenticate in
the success field of the reply.
SitePolicies provide a way to express new forms of security-relevant
information that could not be anticipated at the time of this writing.
For example, suppose the server is found to have a critical security defect.
When a fix is developed, a site policy string could be associated with the
fix. Servers with the fix would advertise that site policy, and the X
firewall proxy would specify that site policy in a SECURITYPOLICY with
policy-type Permit.
Encoding
Please refer to the X11 Protocol Encoding document as this section
uses syntactic conventions and data types established there.
The name of this extension is "SECURITY".
Types
AUTHID: CARD32
Request Encoding
SecurityQueryVersion
1 CARD8 major-opcode
1 0 minor-opcode
2 2 request length
2 CARD16 client-major-version
2 CARD16 client-minor-version
=>
1 1 Reply
1 unused
2 CARD16 sequence number
4 0 reply length
2 CARD16 server-major-version
2 CARD16 server-minor-version
20 unused
SecurityRevokeAuthorization
1 CARD8 major-opcode
1 2 minor-opcode
2 2 request length
4 AUTHID authorization-id
SecurityGenerateAuthorization
1 CARD8 major-opcode
1 1 minor-opcode
2 3 + (m+n+3)/4 + s request length
2 CARD16 m, number of bytes in authorization protocol name
2 CARD16 n, number of bytes in authorization data
m STRING8 authorization protocol name
n STRING8 authorization protocol data
p unused, p=pad(m+n)
4 BITMASK value-mask (has s bits set to 1)
#x00000001 timeout
#x00000002 trust-level
#x00000004 group
#x00000008 event-mask
4s LISTofVALUE value-list
VALUES
4 CARD32 timeout
4 trust-level
0 SecurityClientTrusted
1 SecurityClientUntrusted
4 XID group
0 None
4 CARD32 event-mask
#x00000001 SecurityAuthorizationRevoked
=>
1 1 Reply
1 unused
2 CARD16 sequence number
4 (q+3)/4 reply length
4 AUTHID authorization-id
2 CARD16 data-length
18 unused
q STRING8 authorization-data-return
r unused, r=pad(q)
Event Encoding
SecurityAuthorizationRevoked
1 0+extension event base code
1 unused
2 CARD16 sequence number
4 AUTHID authorization id
24 unused
Authorization Method Encoding
For authorization-protocol-name "XC-QUERY-SECURITY-1", the
authorization-protocol-data is interpreted as follows:
authorization-protocol-data
1 BITMASK policy-mask
#x00000001 Extensions
#x00000002 SitePolicies
m LISTofSECURITYPOLICY policies
SECURITYPOLICY
1 policy-type
0 Permit
1 Disallow
1 CARD8 number of STRs in names
n LISTofSTR names
LISTofSTR has the same encoding as in the X protocol: each STR is a single
byte length, followed by that many characters, and there is no padding or
termination between STRs.
C Language Binding
The header for this extension is <X11/extensions/security.h>. All
identifier names provided by this header begin with XSecurity.
All functions that have return type Status will return nonzero for
success and zero for failure.
Status XSecurityQueryExtension
Display *dpy
int *major_version_return
int *minor_version_return
XSecurityQueryExtension sets major_version_return and
minor_version_return to the major and minor Security protocol version
supported by the server. If the Security library is compatible with the
version returned by the server, it returns nonzero. If dpy does not support
the Security extension, or if there was an error during communication with
the server, or if the server and library protocol versions are incompatible,
it returns zero. No other XSecurity functions may be called before this
function. If a client violates this rule, the effects of all subsequent
XSecurity calls that it makes are undefined.
Xauth *XSecurityAllocXauth
void
In order to provide for future evolution, Xauth structures are used to
pass and return authorization data, and the library provides ways to
allocate and deallocate them.
XSecurityAllocXauth must be used to allocate the
Xauth structure that is passed to
XSecurityGenerateAuthorization.
For the purposes of the Security extension, the Xauth structure has
the following fields:
Type
Field name
Description
unsigned short
name_length
number of bytes in name
char *
name
authorization protocol name
unsigned short
data_length
number of bytes in data
char *
data
authorization protocol data
The Xauth structure returned by this function is initialized as follows:
name_length and data_length are zero, and name and data are NULL.
void XSecurityFreeXauth
Xauth *auth
XSecurityFreeXauth must be used to free Xauth
structures allocated by
XSecurityAllocXauth or returned by
XSecurityGenerateAuthorization. It is the
caller's responsibility to fill in the name and data fields of Xauth structures
allocated with XSecurityAllocXauth, so this function
will not attempt to free them. In contrast, all storage associated with
Xauth structures returned from
XSecurityGenerateAuthorization will be freed by this
function, including the name and data fields.
Bool XSecurityRevokeAuthorization
Display *dpy
XSecurityAuthorization auth_id
XSecurityRevokeAuthorization deletes the authorization
specified by auth_id, which must be a value returned in the auth_id_return
parameter of XSecurityGenerateAuthorization. All
clients that connected with that authorization are be killed. Subsequently,
clients that attempt to connect using that authorization will be refused.
Xauth *XSecurityGenerateAuthorization
Display *dpy
Xauth *auth_in
unsigned long valuemask
XSecurityAutorizationAttributes *attributes
XSecurityAutorization *auth_id_return
XSecurityGenerateAuthorization creates a new
authorization with the specified attributes. The auth_in argument must be
allocated by XSecurityAllocXauth. The
name and name_length fields of auth_in should be initialized to the
authorization protocol name and its length in characters respectively.
If there is authorization data, the data and data_length fields of
auth_in should be initialized to the data and its length in characters
respectivley. The library does not assume that name and data are
null-terminated strings. The auth_in argument must be freed with
XSecurityFreeXauth.
The XSecurityAuthorizationAttributes structure has the following fields:
Type
Field name
Mask
unsigned int
trust_level
XSecurityTrustLevel
unsigned int
timeout
XSecurityTimeout
XID
group
XSecurityGroup
long
event_mask
XSecurityEventMask
These correspond to the trust-level, timeout, group, and event-mask
described in the SecurityGenerateAuthorization protocol request. The
caller can fill in values for any subset of these attributes. The valuemask
argument must be the bitwise OR of the symbols listed in the Mask column
for all supplied attributes. The event_mask attribute can be None,
XSecurityAuthorizationRevokedMask, or XSecurityAllEventMasks. In this
revision of the protocol specification XSecurityAllEventMasks is equivalent
to XSecurityAuthorizationRevokedMask. If the caller does not need to
specify any attributes, the attributes argument can be NULL, and the
valuemask argument must be zero.
If the function fails, NULL is returned and auth_id_return is filled in
with zero. Otherwise, a pointer to an Xauth structure is returned. The name
and name_length fields of the returned Xauth structure will be copies of the
name that was passed in, and the data and data_length fields will be set to
the authorization data returned by the server. The caller should not assume
that name and data are null-terminated strings. If no authorization data was
returned by the server, the data and data_length fields will be set to NULL
and zero repectively. The returned Xauth structure must be freed with
XSecurityFreeXauth; the caller should not use any other
means free the structure or any of its components. The auth_id_return
argument will be filled in with the non-zero authorization id of the created
authorization.
The XSecurityAuthorizationRevokedEvent structure has the following fields:
Type
Field name
Description
int
type
event base + XSecurityAuthorizationRevoked
unsigned long
serial
# of last request processed by server
Bool
send_event
true if this came from SendEvent
Display*
display
Display the event was read from
XSecurityAuthorization
auth_id
revoked authorization id