Re: [RESEND PATCH v18 2/4] overlayfs: handle XATTR_NOSECURITY flag for get xattr method

[Miklos Szeredi <miklos@szeredi.hu>]

On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 5:19 PM Mark Salyzyn <salyzyn@android.com> wrote:
>
> Because of the overlayfs getxattr recursion, the incoming inode fails
> to update the selinux sid resulting in avc denials being reported
> against a target context of u:object_r:unlabeled:s0.
>
> Solution is to respond to the XATTR_NOSECURITY flag in get xattr
> method that calls the __vfs_getxattr handler instead so that the
> context can be read in, rather than being denied with an -EACCES
> when vfs_getxattr handler is called.
>
> For the use case where access is to be blocked by the security layer.
>
> The path then would be security(dentry) ->
> __vfs_getxattr({dentry...XATTR_NOSECURITY}) ->
> handler->get({dentry...XATTR_NOSECURITY}) ->
> __vfs_getxattr({realdentry...XATTR_NOSECURITY}) ->
> lower_handler->get({realdentry...XATTR_NOSECURITY}) which
> would report back through the chain data and success as expected,
> the logging security layer at the top would have the data to
> determine the access permissions and report back to the logs and
> the caller that the target context was blocked.
>
> For selinux this would solve the cosmetic issue of the selinux log
> and allow audit2allow to correctly report the rule needed to address
> the access problem.
>
> Check impure, opaque, origin & meta xattr with no sepolicy audit
> (using __vfs_getxattr) since these operations are internal to
> overlayfs operations and do not disclose any data.  This became
> an issue for credential override off since sys_admin would have
> been required by the caller; whereas would have been inherently
> present for the creator since it performed the mount.
>
> This is a change in operations since we do not check in the new
> ovl_do_getxattr function if the credential override is off or not.
> Reasoning is that the sepolicy check is unnecessary overhead,
> especially since the check can be expensive.
>
> Because for override credentials off, this affects _everyone_ that
> underneath performs private xattr calls without the appropriate
> sepolicy permissions and sys_admin capability.  Providing blanket
> support for sys_admin would be bad for all possible callers.
>
> For the override credentials on, this will affect only the mounter,
> should it lack sepolicy permissions. Not considered a security
> problem since mounting by definition has sys_admin capabilities,
> but sepolicy contexts would still need to be crafted.

This would be a problem when unprivileged mounting of overlay is
introduced.  I'd really like to avoid weakening the current security
model.

The big API churn in the 1/4 patch also seems excessive considering
that this seems to be mostly a cosmetic issue for android.  Am I
missing something?

Thanks,
Miklos