release upgrader launches browser as root

[omichalek]

1. I launch Software Updater, then choose "Upgrade..." to initiate the 13.04 upgrade
2. I am asked fot password
3. A window with release notes pops up

PROBLEM:
4. I click the URL to view release notes
5. A pop-up window complains "Chromium cannot be run as root." (despite Firefox being my default browser)
6. Firefox is launched as root

EXPECTED:
Software Center should honour my default browser and definitely not run it as root.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: software-center 5.4.1.4
Uname: Linux 3.9.0-030900rc8-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu10
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Apr 28 18:06:34 2013
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-11-02 (176 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Release amd64 (20121017.5)
MarkForUpload: True
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: software-center
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[omichalek (omichalek)]

I am attaching animation of the steps

[skierpage (skierpage)]

The exact same thing happens with the 13.04 -> 13.10 updater. I already had Firefox running. From the Release Notes window, clicking
  To see what's new in this release, visit:
   http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/features
brings up same alert about Chromium, and starts a new Firefox window running as root.

This also happens when you click the other links in the Release Notes window, e.g. "community/participate".

[Teo (teo1978)]

WTF two f***ing years later and still not fixed.

Exact same issue upgrading from 15.04 to 15.10

Also note that launching the browser as root is a huge SECURITY issue, how can the importance possibly be just "medium"??

[Michael Farrell (micolous)]

This is still an issue in 17.04. I've flipped this to being a security issue so hopefully it will get the attention it deserves.

$ ps aux | grep firefox
root 4497 12.8 1.0 2211388 347188 ? SNl 10:07 0:03 /usr/lib/firefox/firefox https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArtfulAardvark/ReleaseNotes

[Jed Davis (jld-moz)]

FYI, this is going to break in Firefox 60.

Running Firefox like this (as root in a non-root user's session) has never officially been supported, due to the risk of creating root-owned files that the user can't delete, potentially being a privilege escalation vector, etc. However, this hasn't been enforced.

Until now. There are sandboxing changes coming in 60 that will, as a side effect, break "sudo firefox"-type use. Currently the browser UI will start but fail to load anything, but that's not very helpful for understanding what went wrong, so the plan is to refuse to start and print an error message; see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1323302

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-release-upgrader - 1:18.04.15

---------------
ubuntu-release-upgrader (1:18.04.15) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Fix long line causing pep8 failure in autopkgtest.

 -- Marc Deslauriers <email address hidden> Sat, 07 Apr 2018 10:57:08 -0400

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-release-upgrader - 1:16.04.25

---------------
ubuntu-release-upgrader (1:16.04.25) xenial-security; urgency=medium

  * Properly drop permissions when opening a browser. (LP: #1174007)

 -- Marc Deslauriers <email address hidden> Mon, 09 Apr 2018 10:01:24 -0400

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-release-upgrader - 1:0.220.10

---------------
ubuntu-release-upgrader (1:0.220.10) trusty-security; urgency=medium

  * Properly drop permissions when opening a browser. (LP: #1174007)

 -- Marc Deslauriers <email address hidden> Mon, 09 Apr 2018 10:01:24 -0400

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-release-upgrader - 1:17.10.11

---------------
ubuntu-release-upgrader (1:17.10.11) artful-security; urgency=medium

  * Properly drop permissions when opening a browser. (LP: #1174007)

 -- Marc Deslauriers <email address hidden> Mon, 09 Apr 2018 10:01:24 -0400