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Disable "local_infile" Flag for MySQL Database Instances

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Risk Level: Medium (should be achieved)
Rule ID: CloudSQL-014

Ensure that the "local_infile" database flag is disabled for your Google Cloud MySQL database instances, in order to follow data security best practices.

This rule resolution is part of the Conformity Security & Compliance tool for GCP.

Security

The "local_infile" database flag controls the server-side LOCAL capability for LOAD DATA statements. Depending on the "local_infile" configuration settings, the MySQL server can refuse or allow local data loading by clients that have LOCAL capabilities enabled on the client side. To explicitly make the MySQL database server to refuse LOAD DATA LOCAL statements (regardless of how client applications and libraries are configured at build time or runtime), you can start mysqld server executable with "local_infile" flag disabled. Due to security issues associated with the "local_infile" database flag, it is strongly recommended to disable it for production MySQL database instances.

Note: Some database flag settings can affect instance availability and/or stability, and eventually remove the MySQL instance from the Google Cloud SQL Service Level Agreement (SLA).


Audit

To determine if "local_infile" flag is disabled for your Google Cloud MySQL database instances, perform the following operations:

Using GCP Console

01 Sign in to Google Cloud Management Console.

02 Select the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) project that you want to access from the console top navigation bar.

03 Navigate to Cloud SQL Instances dashboard at https://console.cloud.google.com/sql/instances.

04 Click inside the Filter tree box, select Type and MySQL then press Enter, to list only the MySQL database instances provisioned for the selected GCP project.

05 Click on the name (ID) of the database instance that you want to examine.

06 In the navigation panel, select Overview to access the configuration details of the selected instance.

07 In the Configuration section, under Database flags, check the configuration value set for the local_infile database flag. If local_infile is set to on, the "local_infile" database flag is currently enabled for the selected Google Cloud MySQL database instance, therefore the database configuration is not compliant.

08 Repeat step no. 5 – 7 to check the "local_infile" flag configuration for other MySQL database instances available within the selected project.

09 Repeat steps no. 2 – 8 for each project deployed in your Google Cloud account.

Using GCP CLI

01 Run projects list command (Windows/macOS/Linux) using custom query filters to list the IDs of all the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) projects available in your Google Cloud account:

gcloud projects list
	--format="table(projectId)"

02 The command output should return the requested GCP project identifiers:

PROJECT_ID
cc-web-project-112233
cc-mobile-project-123123

03 Run sql instances list command (Windows/macOS/Linux) using custom filtering to describe the name of each MySQL database instance provisioned for the selected Google Cloud project:

gcloud sql instances list
	--project cc-web-project-112233
	--filter='DATABASE_VERSION:MYSQL*'
	--format="(NAME)"

04 The command output should return the requested database instance name(s):

NAME
cc-web-mysql-instance
cc-int-mysql-instance
cc-app-mysql-instance

05 Run sql instances describe command (Windows/macOS/Linux) using the name of the MySQL database instance that you want to examine as identifier parameter and custom query filters to describe the "local_infile" flag configuration value set for the selected database instance:

gcloud sql instances describe cc-web-mysql-instance
	--format=json | jq '.settings.databaseFlags[] | select(.name=="local_infile")|.value'

06 The command output should return the requested flag configuration value:

"on"

If the sql instances describe command output returns "on", the "local_infile" database flag is enabled for the selected Google Cloud MySQL database instance, therefore the database configuration is not compliant.

07 Repeat step no. 5 and 6 to verify the "local_infile" flag configuration value for other MySQL database instances created for the selected project.

08 Repeat steps no. 3 – 7 for each project available within your Google Cloud account.

Remediation / Resolution

To turn off the "local_infile" database flag for your Google Cloud Platform (GCP) MySQL database instances, perform the following actions:

Note: Disabling "local_infile" makes the database instance refuse local data loading by clients that have LOCAL parameter enabled on the client side.

Using GCP Console

01 Sign in to Google Cloud Management Console.

02 Select the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) project that you want to access from the console top navigation bar.

03 Navigate to Cloud SQL Instances dashboard at https://console.cloud.google.com/sql/instances.

04 Click inside the Filter tree box, select Type and MySQL then press Enter, to display only the MySQL database instances available for the selected project.

05 Click on the name/ID of the database instance that you want to reconfigure.

06 In the navigation panel, select Overview to access the configuration details of the selected instance.

07 Click on the Edit button from the dashboard top menu to access the instance edit mode.

08 In the Configuration options section, click on Flags to expand the panel with the database flags configured for the selected instance.

09 Find the local_infile flag and turn it off by selecting off from the flag configuration dropdown list. If the flag has not been set on the selected instance before, click Add item, choose the local_infile flag from the Choose one dropdown menu, and set its value to off. Click Close to close the panel. IMPORTANT: Configuring the "local_infile" flag restarts automatically the selected database instance.

10 Click Save to apply the configuration changes.

11 Repeat step no. 5 – 10 to configure the specified flag for other MySQL database instances available within the selected project.

12 Repeat steps no. 2 – 11 for each project deployed in your Google Cloud account.

Using GCP CLI

01 Run sql instances patch command (Windows/macOS/Linux) using the name of the MySQL database instance that you want to reconfigure as identifier parameters (see Audit section part II to identify the right resource), to disable the "local_infile" database flag for the selected database instance:

gcloud sql instances patch cc-web-mysql-instance
	--database-flags local_infile=off

IMPORTANT: Configuring the "local_infile" flag restarts automatically the selected database instance.

02 Type Y to confirm the database configuration change:

The following message will be used for the patch API method.
{"name": "cc-web-mysql-instance", "project": "cc-web-project-112233", "settings": {"databaseFlags": [{"name": "local_infile", "value": "off"}]}}
WARNING: This patch modifies database flag values, which may require your instance to be restarted. Check the list of supported flags - https://cloud.google.com/sql/docs/mysql/flags - to see if your instance will be restarted when this patch is submitted.
Do you want to continue (Y/n)? Y

03 The output should return the sql instances patch command request status:

Patching Cloud SQL instance...done.
Updated [https://sqladmin.googleapis.com/sql/v1beta4/projects/cc-web-project-112233/instances/cc-web-mysql-instance].

04 Repeat step no. 1 – 3 to configure the specified flag for other MySQL database instances provisioned for the selected project.

05 Repeat steps no. 1 – 4 for each project created within your Google Cloud account.

References

Publication date Apr 12, 2021

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Disable "local_infile" Flag for MySQL Database Instances

Risk Level: Medium