Disable GNOME3 Automount Opening
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The system’s default desktop environment, GNOME3, will mount
devices and removable media (such as DVDs, CDs and USB flash drives) whenever
they are inserted into the system. To disable automount-open within GNOME3, add or set
automount-open
to false
in /etc/dconf/db/local.d/00-security-settings
.
For example:
[org/gnome/desktop/media-handling]
automount-open=false
Once the settings have been added, add a lock to
/etc/dconf/db/local.d/locks/00-security-settings-lock
to prevent user modification.
For example:
/org/gnome/desktop/media-handling/automount-open
After the settings have been set, run dconf update
.
Rationale
Automatically mounting file systems permits easy introduction of unknown devices, thereby facilitating malicious activity.
Disabling automatic mounting in GNOME3 can prevent
the introduction of malware via removable media.
It will, however, also prevent desktop users from legitimate use
of removable media.
Shell script
The following script can be run on the host to remediate the issue.
#!/bin/bash
# Remediation is applicable only in certain platforms
if dpkg-query --show --showformat='${db:Status-Status}\n' 'gdm3' 2>/dev/null | grep -q installed && { [ ! -f /.dockerenv ] && [ ! -f /run/.containerenv ]; }; then
mkdir -p /etc/dconf/profile
dconf_profile_path=/etc/dconf/profile/user
[[ -s "${dconf_profile_path}" ]] || echo > "${dconf_profile_path}"
if ! grep -Pzq "(?s)^\s*user-db:user.*\n\s*system-db:local" "${dconf_profile_path}"; then
sed -i --follow-symlinks "1s/^/user-db:user\nsystem-db:local\n/" "${dconf_profile_path}"
fi
# Make sure the corresponding directories exist
mkdir -p /etc/dconf/db/local.d
# Make sure permissions allow regular users to read dconf settings.
# Also define the umask to avoid `dconf update` changing permissions.
chmod -R u=rwX,go=rX /etc/dconf/profile
(umask 0022 && dconf update)
mkdir -p /etc/dconf/profile
dconf_profile_path=/etc/dconf/profile/gdm
[[ -s "${dconf_profile_path}" ]] || echo > "${dconf_profile_path}"
if ! grep -Pzq "(?s)^\s*user-db:user.*\n\s*system-db:gdm" "${dconf_profile_path}"; then
sed -i --follow-symlinks "1s/^/user-db:user\nsystem-db:gdm\n/" "${dconf_profile_path}"
fi
# Make sure the corresponding directories exist
mkdir -p /etc/dconf/db/gdm.d
# Make sure permissions allow regular users to read dconf settings.
# Also define the umask to avoid `dconf update` changing permissions.
chmod -R u=rwX,go=rX /etc/dconf/profile
(umask 0022 && dconf update)
# Check for setting in any of the DConf db directories
# If files contain ibus or distro, ignore them.
# The assignment assumes that individual filenames don't contain :
readarray -t SETTINGSFILES < <(grep -r "\\[org/gnome/desktop/media-handling\\]" "/etc/dconf/db/" \
| grep -v 'distro\|ibus\|local.d' | cut -d":" -f1)
DCONFFILE="/etc/dconf/db/local.d/00-security-settings"
DBDIR="/etc/dconf/db/local.d"
mkdir -p "${DBDIR}"
# Comment out the configurations in databases different from the target one
if [ "${#SETTINGSFILES[@]}" -ne 0 ]
then
if grep -q "^\\s*automount-open\\s*=" "${SETTINGSFILES[@]}"
then
sed -Ei "s/(^\s*)automount-open(\s*=)/#\1automount-open\2/g" "${SETTINGSFILES[@]}"
fi
fi
[ ! -z "${DCONFFILE}" ] && echo "" >> "${DCONFFILE}"
if ! grep -q "\\[org/gnome/desktop/media-handling\\]" "${DCONFFILE}"
then
printf '%s\n' "[org/gnome/desktop/media-handling]" >> ${DCONFFILE}
fi
escaped_value="$(sed -e 's/\\/\\\\/g' <<< "false")"
if grep -q "^\\s*automount-open\\s*=" "${DCONFFILE}"
then
sed -i "s/\\s*automount-open\\s*=\\s*.*/automount-open=${escaped_value}/g" "${DCONFFILE}"
else
sed -i "\\|\\[org/gnome/desktop/media-handling\\]|a\\automount-open=${escaped_value}" "${DCONFFILE}"
fi
# Make sure permissions allow regular users to read dconf settings.
# Also define the umask to avoid `dconf update` changing permissions.
chmod -R u=rwX,go=rX /etc/dconf/db
(umask 0022 && dconf update)
# Check for setting in any of the DConf db directories
LOCKFILES=$(grep -r "^/org/gnome/desktop/media-handling/automount-open$" "/etc/dconf/db/" \
| grep -v 'distro\|ibus\|local.d' | grep ":" | cut -d":" -f1)
LOCKSFOLDER="/etc/dconf/db/local.d/locks"
mkdir -p "${LOCKSFOLDER}"
# Comment out the configurations in databases different from the target one
if [[ ! -z "${LOCKFILES}" ]]
then
sed -i -E "s|^/org/gnome/desktop/media-handling/automount-open$|#&|" "${LOCKFILES[@]}"
fi
if ! grep -qr "^/org/gnome/desktop/media-handling/automount-open$" /etc/dconf/db/local.d/
then
echo "/org/gnome/desktop/media-handling/automount-open" >> "/etc/dconf/db/local.d/locks/00-security-settings-lock"
fi
# Make sure permissions allow regular users to read dconf settings.
# Also define the umask to avoid `dconf update` changing permissions.
chmod -R u=rwX,go=rX /etc/dconf/db
(umask 0022 && dconf update)
else
>&2 echo 'Remediation is not applicable, nothing was done'
fi