My app started new process by ShellExecuteEx with "runas" verb in order to get administrator privilegies. New process creates some files in the user folder, but files can't be readed by built-in users. Only administrators can access those files. Same problem on XP and Vista.
I tried to read SetNamedSecurityInfo() docs but it's too complex for newbee. Can somebody tell how to just enable file read access for built-in users ?
Thanks.
When a user creates a file, the file owner is set to that user by default. Therefore, when you run commands as the administrator that create files, those files are owned by the administrator, not you. You either need to find a smaller command to runas the administrator that doesn't create tons of files, or you need to add another runas command that changes the ownership of those files back to your user.
I must confess I don't have experience in Windows programming, as I come from the Linux world, but I'm sure someone else can help you find the suitable commands if you post some code to help us understand what you're trying to do.
Related
I am very new to programming. I want to run a program with C++ which will prompt administrative permission to the user in windows. Is there any way to run another bunch of code if the permission is not granted??
system("setup.exe");//This will prompt administrative permission to the user. If permission is denied then I want to execute some other codes, for example, printif("Give administrative permission next time");
It is impossible to do for the already executing process. You can only start one more process (even if this is the same application). Another approach is to add appropriate application manifest which would force the runtime system to request the user for UAC elevation confirmation from the very beginning.
For the first approach, please see: CreateProcessAsUser function (Windows).
For the second (manifest) approach, please see, for example, this answer: C++ — How to run application with Admin privileges using Manifest file in Visual Studio 2005?.
Note that it is impossible to elevate the privileges without explicit user's consent. If it was possible, it would defeat the purpose of UAC. Please see: User Account Control — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
As I told I am very new to programming. So U was trying different codes without knowing what actually they are supposed to do. So finally a simple code servrd my purpose though I dont know what actually happening there. The code is
if(system("setup.exe")){printf("Give administrative permission next time");}
I have a multi-process application that was originally developed in XP and was originally designed with no regard to administrator privileges. We used to configure and sell computers with the software. We are now selling the application by itself, without the hardware, to be installed on user systems in a corporate environment. Currently our software package requires our users to run in administrator mode, which is not making us popular with our customers IT departments.
I have been working to remove items that obviously require administrator privileges (writing to HKLM in the registry, writing to the Program Files folders). However, Windows continues to require administrator rights to run the software. If I deny the rights, it closes with no logs. It has a lot of legacy code and so hints to find where the administrator access is happening has proven difficult.
Is there an easy way to see what is being accessed or done that is hitting Windows 10 admin requirements?
Currently I have removed moved writing of data files I could identify to the Program Data folder or to user documents. (depending on whether I want users to be able to easily find them or not).
Configuration files have been moved to user folders.
Registry key access has been kept to HKLU or read-only in HKLM.
Thank you all for the help. I ended up finding the answer in the C# based launcher for our software, which was starting all processes with the verb "runas" set:
try
{
myProcess.StartInfo.Verb = "runas";
myProcess.StartInfo.FileName = command;
myProcess.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = workingDir;
myProcess.StartInfo.Arguments = prams;
myProcess.Start();
}
catch (Exception ex){}
I removed the "runas" verb and now the system is not requesting admin privileges on the started pieces of code.
I found the cause when I tried to setup a debug run from the Program Files directory and started the code without going through the launcher. (started in a debugger) The system did not request administrative permissions which led me back to the launcher. I recently got the launcher to run without needing administrative permissions and so I had assumed that the problem was in the other processes. Seems I was mistaken.
Here is the issue that I am having,
I have a C++ application that runs by writing data to .txt files and I want to create an MSI Package for the application.
When I build and run my app all is fine but when I run my MSI Setup File the created application does get granted the correct privileges to function.
I can't find a way to allow the app to write to the .txt files needed even if I include them in the package and set them as system files.
If I "Run as administrator" all is well but that isn't really plausible as I need it to function while "Running as User".
Is there anyway to prompt the user while installing to agree to an install with admin rights, so it doesn't have to be done manually before a prompt each launch.
Anything that can get my code running again would be brilliant, thanks.
Longer Writeup: System.UnauthorizedAccessException while running .exe under program files (several other options in addition to the ones listed below).
Per-User Folder: I would think you should install the files in question to a per-user folder (writeable for user - for example My Documents), or as templates to a per-machine folder (not writeable for normal users - for example %ProgramFiles%) and then have your application copy the templates from the per-machine location to the current user's My Documents folder - for example. Then you write to the files there - where a regular user will have write access. I suppose you could also write to a network share which is set up for users to have access.
Elevation: It is possible, to require the application to run elevated (link might be outdated - for .NET it is slightly different), but this is a horrible approach for something as simple as writing to text files. I would never require such elevation. Elevated rights are pervasive, and you don't want your application to run with the keys to the city - you become a hacker target and bugs in your tool become armed and dangerous.
ACL Modification: It is also possible to install the text files to a per-machine location and apply ACL permissioning to them so that they are writeable for regular users even if they don't have elevated rights. There is some information on how to do this here (bullet point 2). This approach is frowned upon in this day and age, but it will work. Be on the alert that your ACL permissioning shouldn't be too tight, in case you write to a new file, delete the old one and rename the new file to the old name during your write operation - you need file create in addition to file write obviously - there is very fine-grained control in NTFS. GenericWrite should do the trick I think.
Some Links (loosely connected, added for easy retrieval):
Create folder and file on Current user profile, from Admin Profile
Why is it a good idea to limit deployment of files to the user-profile or HKCU when using MSI?
Create a .config folder in the user folder
There is no connection at all between the install of an application and the running of an application regarding privileges. In other words there is nothing you can do in an MSI install that grants elevated privileges to the app being installed. It would be a massive security breach if a limited user could create an MSI setup that then installed an app that ran elevated.
So this question is actually nothing to do with Windows Installer - it's about whether you require users to be limited users or elevated users. If it's acceptable that users must be privileged, then you give the app an elevation manifest. If limited users will use it, then all writes or modifications to files or registry entries must be to locations available to limited users. It also means that the app won't be able to perform privileged operations, such as starting or stopping services.
I'm working on a C++ application that stores (and frequently accesses) its data across many files within a single directory via numerous classes, database libraries, etc. I would like to start encrypting all this data on disk using a key managed by the application.
On windows, programmatically enabling EFS for the directory would be perfect if the application could set the encryption key directly rather than using one based on the logged-in user's password. This does not seem possible.
Because there are numerous places in the code that read/write files, some with full random-access, a library that exports something akin to the OS file operation API would be easiest in the absence of direct OS support.
Windows is the biggest user base but something usable on Mac and Linux would be a big plus.
Any suggestions?
Configure the application to run as a service account, intended only for it. Then, configure EFS. Since the application's service account will own the files, its user-specific keys should be the only valid EFS keys for it, so only the application (which will be the only thing running under this new service account) will be able to access the files.
Have you considered storing the files in an encrypted archive, such as a zip file? Not knowing what language you're working in makes it difficult to give a more specific answer.
I am not an expert but I have a few suggestions,
('user' is considered Male here)
In Windows, when an user is logged in, he will have all the rights to manipulate a file or folder which belongs to him.
But, if he tries to manipulate files or folders which belong to other users, he is not allowed to do so. So, he can't manipulate other user's files.
If the user is administrator, he will have all the rights to manipulate the file.
In your case, I believe the user is not administrator.
So, I suggest to you to:
Create a user for this application, say Bob(Bob is not the user who is going to use this application).
Then you create a folder to store your files and give all permission only to Bob(and the admin).
For all others, there no permission to do anything to the folder.
Your application must be installed by administrator.
When you start, Your application asks Bob's password from current user.
If the password is correct,
Using your application allow full access folder permission to the current user. Then application can work as you wish.
If the user quits the application,
Remove all permission for current user so that after quitting this application others can't access that content.
But Administrator can still access this content.
This is similar like Linux user management.
When you are getting a shell you can change user using su username when finishes the work and he quits the shell then others can't use those files. But root user can do anything in Linux.
But there is one problem.
Administrator can get full content and access since he can modify the permissions.
To disallow this, save the files by zipping using any technique and by using a password. That password is only known by the user who uses it. Before saving a file to the folder, zip it using a password. Before using the file, unzip it using the password.
If the zipping password is same as user password, then there is a problem.
The administrator can reset user password to something and open his account.
To prevent this you can use the following technique:
Use zip password as reverse of user password, so that if his password is 1234 the zipping password is 4321, or use hash value of user password as zipping password.
If the zip password is hash value like MD5 hash or SHA-1 then brute force on zip file won't work due to the password length.
I don't know if this is a working solution or not or if this can be implemented or not.
But you can take some ideas out of this, if you think there is some good ideas in this.
Unless I've missed something in your question, TrueCrypt seems to be an ideal solution for you.
It will allow to:
Utilize existing OS file API (as the mounted volume will behave just like regular volume)
Programmatically manage access key (password)
Limit access to the mounted volume (by OS mechanics)
Utilize same principles on all the platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux)
Or, if you want, you can encrypt/decrypt individual files with it.
There's a number of examples on how to use it around.
I am trying to release a C++ .Net application and am getting very frustrated with Windows UAC. I have not much experience with this as have always been writing for XP.
The program needs to update some properties that are stored in two XML files and every time it tries it gets access denied if it is not running with an Administrator account.
I have followed the recommendations from Microsoft and am writing all the files that need to be modified to the CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA folder. The installer has an action that creates the [Organization}[Program] structure within the later and adds the security group Every One with full control privilege because by default, that directory is read only.
I have verified that the cretated directory [Organization}[Program] does actually contains the group and the privilege assigned after installing.
Also, the application has a manifest with a requestedExecutionLevel, which I have tried asinvoker and Highestavailable.
The application is still not being capable of writing to the directory unless the user is not logged as Administrator...
The machines are in a domain controled by a server 2003 but the clients are a mix of XP, vista and 7.
Please, could someone with more experience in this than I enlight me?
Should I use some other folder? The problem is that Different users might log into the computer and those settings are common, therefore the obvious User folder is not an option.
I cannot either add the user to the security of the folders with the installer because I don't know which user from the domain will use the program and I cannot do it from the program when starting because if the user does not have adminstrator rights the program will just be blocked.
Please, any advise or indication about what am I missing here?
This may discuss your problem. See especially
Your application's installer needs to set ACLs on your subdirectory of CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA to allow users to access that directory as required by your application