[New-bugs-announce] [issue33059] netrc module validates file mode only for /home/user/.netrc

[Andreas Költringer]

New submission from Andreas Költringer <andreas.koeltringer at n-fuse.co>:

On my first try to use the netrc module I got back the error: 

    "~/.netrc access too permissive: access permissions must restrict access to only the owner"

I changed the file permissions and wrapped this up in try-except and went on to write some unit tests (using tempfile), assuming that the file mode checks would be performed on any netrc file I passed into the constructor (yes, I did not read the documentation sufficiently well).

Anyway, I believe that these security checks should be done for any netrc file (they contain sensitive information no matter where they are located on the file system). There was already a discussion on the topic

    https://bugs.python.org/issue14984

where there was concern regarding backwards-compatibility and the idea to re-visit this issue "in the future". That was in 2013, so maybe this "future" is now?

----------
components: Library (Lib)
messages: 313701
nosy: akoeltringer
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: netrc module validates file mode only for /home/user/.netrc
type: security
versions: Python 3.4, Python 3.5, Python 3.6, Python 3.7, Python 3.8

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue33059>
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