Awesome

adage

ada group and user escalation

Hopefully this goes without saying, but don't install random SUID binaries off the internet. Don't install this on any machine unless you really know what you're doing.

# run a command as root
$ adg systemctl list-units
[output snipped]
# or as any other user, in this case, the nas user
$ adg @nas ls /media/nas
[output snipped]

Overview

Adage is a nimble alternative to doas and sudo meant to be simple, safe, proven, and secure. This simplicity is in usage, configuration, and function: Adage does as little as it can get away with.

Usage

Install alire. Then, run alr build. Alternatively, adage is coming maybe some day to a package manager near you.

adg [@user] [cmd...]

Configuration

You probably want this configuration in /etc/adage.conf:

# Permit users of the wheel group to escalate to root.
permit g!wheel as root

# If you want to give your own user absolute power with no password, add
# this line, too. It's convenient, but carries with it the obvious
# implications.
permit u!your-user as *: nopasswd

If this isn't the config you want, see adage.conf(5).

Status

Adage is unstable, unaudited, and developed on the villainous schedule of my free time. That said, here's what I'm looking to add or vaguely considering:

• Comprehensive logging. Errors and escalations should be reported to the syslog, or, if no socket is accessible, /var/log.

• Persisted authentication. Both doas and sudo allow authentication to persist for a bit so that password prompts don't become too annoying. This probably represents a nice security/annoyance compromise, and would be good to support.

• Configuration validation and escalation dry runs. Should be self-explanatory, would be a nice QoL feature. (Validation implemented in fff516, dry runs still TODO.)

• PAM. Loading C dynlibs and asking them nicely to authenticate a user isn't a great strategy, but it is the current standard. Support with some sandboxing may have some utility, but I'm not etnhusiastic about it.

• More verification. Right now, components are fairly well-coupled, making it hard to extract pure functions to verify. As a result, Adage is maybe a bit too light on SPARK.