Hello,

The mapr web frontend component creates an information disclosure
vulnerability.  During the setup of mapr the configure.sh script calls a
function ConfigureWSRole:

function ConfigureWSRole() {
  if [ $clientOnly -eq 0 -a $dontChangeSecurityPermissionsOn -eq 0 ];
  then
    ConfigureRunUserForWS
  fi

This calls ConfigureRunUserForWS from configure-common.sh:

function ConfigureRunUserForWS() {
  local val=`getent group shadow 2>/dev/null`
  if [ "$?" != "0" -o "$val" = "" ]; then
    # Create a group named shadow
    groupadd shadow  >> $logFile 2>&1
  fi
  # Add CURR_USER to the group wheel
  if [ -f /etc/SuSE-release ]; then
      # Add CURR_USER to the group wheel for SUSE
      usermod -A shadow $MAPR_USER >> $logFile 2>&1
      STATUS=$?
      #
      # The '-A' option has been removed from SuSE 12 
      #
      if [ $STATUS -ne 0 ]; then
          usermod -a -G shadow $MAPR_USER  >> $logFile 2>&1
      fi
  else
      usermod -a -G $MAPR_GROUP,shadow $MAPR_USER  >> $logFile 2>&1
  fi
  # Change group-owner of /etc/shadow
  chgrp shadow /etc/shadow  >> $logFile 2>&1
  # Allow read permissions for user shadow
  chmod ug+r /etc/shadow >> $logFile 2>&1
}

This results in a shadow file that is now readable to the application:

# ls -la /etc/shadow
-r--r-----. 1 root shadow 657 Mar 30 16:09 /etc/shadow
# grep shadow /etc/group
shadow:x:1000:mapr

The option to disable this codepath, -no-auto-permission-update,  is not
recommended by Mapr and comes with a warning in the script as it will
break the webserver's ability to authenticate the local mapr user, which
is used to administer the cluster:

        echo "    -no-auto-permission-update - do not update the system
        security permissions automatically"
        echo "                             Warn: Features like WebServer
        might not work properly"
        echo "                             default: disabled"

The website docs[1] casually describe the option, "Pass this option to
prevent MapR from silently altering permissions in /etc/shadow."

These files are part of the mapr-core-internal package:

# rpm -fq /opt/mapr/server/configure.sh
mapr-core-internal-5.2.0.39122.GA-1.x86_64
# rpm -fq /opt/mapr/server/configure-common.sh
mapr-core-internal-5.2.0.39122.GA-1.x86_64


Thanks

[1] http://maprdocs.mapr.com/home/ReferenceGuide/configure.sh.html

-- 
  Mark Felder
  feld@feld.me