Disable GNOME3 Automounting

Description

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 within GNOME3, add or set automount to false in /etc/dconf/db/local.d/00-security-settings. For example:

[org/gnome/desktop/media-handling]
automount=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

After the settings have been set, run dconf update.

Rationale

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.

Remediation

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 [ "${#SETTINGSFILES[@]}" -ne 0 ]
then
    if grep -q "^\\s*automount\\s*=" "${SETTINGSFILES[@]}"
    then
        
        sed -Ei "s/(^\s*)automount(\s*=)/#\1automount\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="$(sed -e 's/\\/\\\\/g' <<< "false")"
if grep -q "^\\s*automount\\s*=" "${DCONFFILE}"
then
        sed -i "s/\\s*automount\\s*=\\s*.*/automount=${escaped_value}/g" "${DCONFFILE}"
    else
        sed -i "\\|\\[org/gnome/desktop/media-handling\\]|a\\automount=${escaped_value}" "${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=$(grep -r "^/org/gnome/desktop/media-handling/automount$" "/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 "${LOCKFILES}" ]]
then
    sed -i -E "s|^/org/gnome/desktop/media-handling/automount$|#&|" "${LOCKFILES[@]}"
fi

if ! grep -qr "^/org/gnome/desktop/media-handling/automount$" /etc/dconf/db/local.d/
then
    echo "/org/gnome/desktop/media-handling/automount" >> "/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