Re: [PATCH] Extended Attributes for Security Modules against 2.5.68

[Stephen Smalley <sds@epoch.ncsc.mil>]

On Wed, 2003-04-23 at 14:17, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> First, please put the changes in the LSM API in a different patch from
> the xattr changes, they're a different issue.

I don't mind splitting them into a separate patch (and offered to do so
in the earlier posting against 2.5.67), but I don't agree that they are
a different issue.  The changes to the LSM xattr-related hooks are part
of supporting the use of extended attributes by security modules for
file security labels; the changes permit the security module to update
the inode security structure upon successful setxattr calls, and to
provide atomicity for the check and update of the security label.

> The other question is why do you name them system.security?  The name
> sounds a bit too generic to me.  ACLs are certainly a security feature
> and have different ATTRS, similar for the Posix capability and MAC
> support in XFS.  As selinux is the flask implementation for Linux
> what about system.flask_label?  (or system.selinux_label?)

The idea of using separate attribute names for each security module was
already discussed at length when I posted the original RFC, and I've
already made the case that this is not desirable.  Please see the
earlier discussion.

-- 
Stephen Smalley <sds@epoch.ncsc.mil>
National Security Agency