Re: [PATCH] selinux-testsuite: update to work on Debian

[Paul Moore <paul@paul-moore.com>]

On Thu, May 7, 2020 at 8:52 AM Stephen Smalley
<stephen.smalley.work@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, May 7, 2020 at 4:46 AM Laurent Bigonville <bigon@debian.org> wrote:
> >
> > Le 6/05/20 à 18:37, Russell Coker a écrit :
> > > On Thursday, 7 May 2020 1:50:46 AM AEST Stephen Smalley wrote:
> > >> on that running instance, but not to specify custom kernel parameters
> > >> initially or to reboot the system before proceeding with further
> > >> commands (if anyone knows differently, speak up). We'd have to get to
> > >> the point where enabling SELinux in Debian is possible without
> > >> requiring a reboot at all.  And then we'd have to wait for that
> > >> support to find its way into one of the Ubuntu images supported by
> > >> travis-ci.  Might be easier to just get travis-ci to support Fedora or
> > >> CentOS images in the first place. Regardless, allowing the testsuite
> > >> to be run by users of other distributions is worthwhile IMHO.
> > > In the past there hasn't been much demand for a smoother installation process.
> > > If you are setting up a traditional Unix server system the Debian SE Linux
> > > installation thing doesn't make things much more difficult.  Past complaints
> > > about it have been more about an imagined difficulty of using SE Linux and have
> > > ended when I showed and wrote about how to do it (one time I showed
> > > screenshots of the process in an LCA lightning talk and didn't have problems
> > > with time).
> > >
> > > I don't think that the people who maintain the Debian installation related
> > > packages would have a great objection to adding SE Linux features, although it
> > > might take a bit of time for it to migrate from Debian to Ubuntu.
> > >
> > > We can make this a priority.
> > >
> > If people are using preseed installations (kickstart equivalent), I
> > think that enabling SELinux in the installer shouldn't be too difficult
> > (installing the needed packages, modifying the files and relabeling with
> > fixfiles). It's obviously not user friendly, but the question is what's
> > the target here.
>
> The visionary end state goal would be to allow one to specify some
> kind of option in a travis-ci configuration and get a SELinux-enabled
> image on which we could perform travis-ci validation of
> selinux-testsuite, selinux userspace, and maybe even the kernel.  I
> don't think that is possible in the near term though and will require
> changes to travis-ci itself.  At the moment our travis-ci validation
> of the testsuite and userspace is limited to building and in the
> latter case running some limited tests that do not depend on having
> SELinux on the host.
>
> The nearer term goal is to minimize obstacles to using SELinux in
> Debian, one of which is the need to install Debian and then install
> SELinux as a separate step (with two reboots along the way) rather
> than an installer option.  We can't use that approach in travis-ci
> AFAICT because we cannot reboot the instance and then proceed with
> testing.  If we can tell the installer to include the necessary grub
> and pam configurations up front and to label the filesystems during
> installation (which can happen even while SELinux is disabled in the
> kernel; only requires filesystem xattr support), then we can avoid the
> need for any extra reboots post install.

For a long time now I've wanted to expand my selinux/next kernel
testing to platforms beyond Fedora.  I believe that it not only helps
catch problems before the kernel is released, but it also helps ensure
that the underlying distro has all of the necessary pieces (userspace,
policy, etc.) in place to support the latest and upcoming kernels.

Unfortunately every time I've looked at the state of SELinux in Debian
I've run out of time before I got it working well.  I'm not even going
to get into the Debian package format :/

I would be very happy to see some work go into lowering the bar on
getting SELinux working on Debian.  My Debian experience is pretty
limited, but you can sign me up as a very enthusiastic beta-tester,
just point me at some docs and an ISO :)

-- 
paul moore
www.paul-moore.com