linux-security-module.vger.kernel.org archive mirror
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Stephen Smalley <sds@tycho.nsa.gov>
To: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>,
	Ondrej Mosnacek <omosnace@redhat.com>,
	selinux@vger.kernel.org, Paul Moore <paul@paul-moore.com>
Cc: linux-security-module@vger.kernel.org,
	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>,
	Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>,
	linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, cgroups@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 0/3] Allow initializing the kernfs node's secctx based on its parent
Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2019 15:37:16 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <f7312dd2-ea86-51ab-652d-2df39faf52c7@tycho.nsa.gov> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <fbdcf8ef-1587-18f2-3293-452d62305ab3@schaufler-ca.com>

On 1/9/19 12:19 PM, Casey Schaufler wrote:
> On 1/9/2019 8:28 AM, Ondrej Mosnacek wrote:
>> Changes in v2:
>> - add docstring for the new hook in union security_list_options
>> - initialize *ctx to NULL and *ctxlen to 0 in case the hook is not
>>    implemented
>> v1: https://lore.kernel.org/selinux/20190109091028.24485-1-omosnace@redhat.com/T/
>>
>> This series adds a new security hook that allows to initialize the security
>> context of kernfs properly, taking into account the parent context. Kernfs
>> nodes require special handling here, since they are not bound to specific
>> inodes/superblocks, but instead represent the backing tree structure that
>> is used to build the VFS tree when the kernfs tree is mounted.
>>
>> The kernfs nodes initially do not store any security context and rely on
>> the LSM to assign some default context to inodes created over them.
> 
> This seems like a bug in kernfs. Why doesn't kernfs adhere to the usual
> and expected filesystem behavior?

sysfs / kernfs didn't support xattrs at all when we first added support 
for setting security contexts to it, so originally all sysfs / kernfs 
inodes had a single security context, and we only required separate 
storage for the inodes that were explicitly labeled by userspace.

Later kernfs grew support for trusted.* xattrs using simple_xattrs but 
the existing security.* support was left mostly unchanged.

> 
>> Kernfs
>> inodes, however, allow setting an explicit context via the *setxattr(2)
>> syscalls, in which case the context is stored inside the kernfs node's
>> metadata.
>>
>> SELinux (and possibly other LSMs) initialize the context of newly created
>> FS objects based on the parent object's context (usually the child inherits
>> the parent's context, unless the policy dictates otherwise).
> 
> An LSM might use information about the parent other than the "context".
> Smack, for example, uses an attribute SMACK64TRANSMUTE from the parent
> to determine whether the Smack label of the new object should be taken
> from the parent or the process. Passing the "context" of the parent is
> insufficient for Smack.

IIUC, this would involve switching the handling of security.* xattrs in 
kernfs over to use simple_xattrs too (so that we can store multiple such 
attributes), and then pass the entire simple_xattrs list or at least 
anything with a security.* prefix when initializing a new node or 
refreshing an existing inode.  Then the security module could extract 
any security.* attributes of interest for use in determining the label 
of new inodes and in refreshing the label of an inode.

> 
>> This is done
>> by hooking the creation of the new inode corresponding to the newly created
>> file/directory via security_inode_init_security() (most filesystems always
>> create a fresh inode when a new FS object is created). However, kernfs nodes
>> can be created "behind the scenes" while the filesystem is not mounted
>> anywhere and thus no inodes exist.
>>
>> Therefore, to allow maintaining similar behavior for kernfs nodes, a new LSM
>> hook is needed, which would allow initializing the kernfs node's security
>> context based on the context stored in the parent's node (if any).
>>
>> The main motivation for this change is that the userspace users of cgroupfs
>> (which is built on kernfs) expect the usual security context inheritance
>> to work under SELinux (see [1] and [2]). This functionality is required for
>> better confinement of containers under SELinux.
>>
>> The first patch adds the new LSM hook; the second patch implements the hook
>> in SELinux; and the third patch modifies kernfs to use the new hook to
>> initialize the security context of kernfs nodes whenever its parent node
>> has a non-default context set.
>>
>> Note: the patches are based on current selinux/next [3], but they seem to
>> apply cleanly on top of v5.0-rc1 as well.
>>
>> Testing:
>> - passed SELinux testsuite on Fedora 29 (x86_64) when applied on top of
>>    current Rawhide kernel (5.0.0-0.rc1.git0.1) [4]
>> - passed the reproducer from the last patch
>>
>> [1] https://github.com/SELinuxProject/selinux-kernel/issues/39
>> [2] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1553803
>> [3] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/pcmoore/selinux.git/log/?h=selinux-pr-20181224
>> [4] https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/omos/kernel-testing/build/842855/
>>
>> Ondrej Mosnacek (3):
>>    LSM: Add new hook for generic node initialization
>>    selinux: Implement the object_init_security hook
>>    kernfs: Initialize security of newly created nodes
>>
>>   fs/kernfs/dir.c             | 49 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---
>>   fs/kernfs/inode.c           |  9 +++----
>>   fs/kernfs/kernfs-internal.h |  4 +++
>>   include/linux/lsm_hooks.h   | 30 +++++++++++++++++++++++
>>   include/linux/security.h    | 14 +++++++++++
>>   security/security.c         | 10 ++++++++
>>   security/selinux/hooks.c    | 41 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>   7 files changed, 149 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)
>>
> 


  reply	other threads:[~2019-01-09 20:45 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 22+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2019-01-09 16:28 [PATCH v2 0/3] Allow initializing the kernfs node's secctx based on its parent Ondrej Mosnacek
2019-01-09 16:28 ` [PATCH v2 1/3] LSM: Add new hook for generic node initialization Ondrej Mosnacek
2019-01-09 17:08   ` Casey Schaufler
2019-01-11  1:57     ` Paul Moore
2019-01-11 18:30       ` Casey Schaufler
2019-01-14  9:01       ` Ondrej Mosnacek
2019-01-09 16:28 ` [PATCH v2 2/3] selinux: Implement the object_init_security hook Ondrej Mosnacek
2019-01-09 16:28 ` [PATCH v2 3/3] kernfs: Initialize security of newly created nodes Ondrej Mosnacek
2019-01-11 20:52   ` Tejun Heo
2019-01-09 17:19 ` [PATCH v2 0/3] Allow initializing the kernfs node's secctx based on its parent Casey Schaufler
2019-01-09 20:37   ` Stephen Smalley [this message]
2019-01-09 22:03     ` Casey Schaufler
2019-01-10 14:15       ` Stephen Smalley
2019-01-10 17:54         ` Casey Schaufler
2019-01-10 19:37           ` Stephen Smalley
2019-01-11  2:20             ` Paul Moore
2019-01-14  9:01               ` Ondrej Mosnacek
2019-01-11 18:22             ` Casey Schaufler
2019-01-14  9:01           ` Ondrej Mosnacek
2019-01-22  8:49             ` Ondrej Mosnacek
2019-01-22 14:17               ` Stephen Smalley
2019-01-22 15:26                 ` Stephen Smalley

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=f7312dd2-ea86-51ab-652d-2df39faf52c7@tycho.nsa.gov \
    --to=sds@tycho.nsa.gov \
    --cc=casey@schaufler-ca.com \
    --cc=cgroups@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=gregkh@linuxfoundation.org \
    --cc=linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=linux-security-module@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=omosnace@redhat.com \
    --cc=paul@paul-moore.com \
    --cc=selinux@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=tj@kernel.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).