[kernel-hardening] Re: [PATCH v6 0/2] security: tty: make TIOCSTI ioctl require CAP_SYS_ADMIN

From: Nicolas Belouin <nicolas@belouin.fr>
To: kernel-hardening@lists.openwall.com, Matt Brown <matt@nmatt.com>
Cc: serge@hallyn.com, gregkh@linuxfoundation.org, jslaby@suse.com,
	akpm@linux-foundation.org, jannh@google.com,
	keescook@chromium.org, jmorris@namei.org,
	linux-security-module@vger.kernel.org,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	Alan Cox <gnomes@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Subject: [kernel-hardening] Re: [PATCH v6 0/2] security: tty: make TIOCSTI ioctl require CAP_SYS_ADMIN
Date: Mon, 15 May 2017 06:45:14 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <0093C52B-B3D8-40A7-AB62-727861C4B261@belouin.fr> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <e73698a7-7b6a-a916-3270-82dcfe0a558b@nmatt.com>

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I haven't read your patch, but from its description, are you sure CAP_SYS_ADMIN is the right choice for such behavior ?
CAP_SYS_ADMIN is, from my point of view, a too broadly used capability.
I think CAP_SYS_TTY_CONFIG is a more appropriate capability for that particular purpose.

On May 13, 2017 9:52:58 PM GMT+02:00, Matt Brown <matt@nmatt.com> wrote:
>On 05/10/2017 04:29 PM, Alan Cox wrote:
>> On Fri,  5 May 2017 19:20:16 -0400
>> Matt Brown <matt@nmatt.com> wrote:
>>
>>> This patchset introduces the tiocsti_restrict sysctl, whose default
>is
>>> controlled via CONFIG_SECURITY_TIOCSTI_RESTRICT. When activated,
>this
>>> control restricts all TIOCSTI ioctl calls from non CAP_SYS_ADMIN
>users.
>>>
>>> This patch was inspired from GRKERNSEC_HARDEN_TTY.
>>>
>>> This patch would have prevented
>>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1411256 under the
>following
>>> conditions:
>>> * non-privileged container
>>> * container run inside new user namespace
>>>
>>> Possible effects on userland:
>>>
>>> There could be a few user programs that would be effected by this
>>> change.
>>> See: <https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=ioctl%5C%28.*TIOCSTI>
>>> notable programs are: agetty, csh, xemacs and tcsh
>>>
>>> However, I still believe that this change is worth it given that the
>>> Kconfig defaults to n.
>>
>> And it still doesn't deal with the fact that there are hundreds of
>other
>> ways to annoy the owner of a tty if it's passed to a lower privilege
>> child from framebuffer reprogramming through keyboard remaps.
>>
>> The proper way to handle those cases is to create a pty/tty pair and
>use
>> that. Your patch is pure snake oil and if anything implies safety
>that
>> doesn't exist.
>>
>
>I'm not implying that my patch is supposed to provide safety for
>"hundreds of other" issues. I'm looking to provide a way to lock down a
>single TTY ioctl that has caused real security issues to arise. For
>this reason, it's completely incorrect to say that this feature is
>snake oil. My patch does exactly what it claims to do. No more no less.
>
>> In addition your change to allow it to be used by root in the guest
>> completely invalidates any protection you have because I can push
>>
>> "rm -rf /\n"
>>
>> as root in my namespace and exit
>>
>> The tty buffers are not flushed across the context change so the
>shell
>> you return to gets the input and oh dear....
>
>This is precisely what my patch prevents! With my protection enabled, a
>container will only be able to use the TIOCSTI ioctl on a tty if that
>container has CAP_SYS_ADMIN in the user namespace in which the tty was
>created.
>
>>
>> Alan
>>

Nicolas

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