Re: [RFC PATCH 00/11] Adding FreeBSD's Capsicum security framework (part 1)

[Loganaden Velvindron <loganaden@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 1:12 PM, Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> wrote:
> Il 30/06/2014 12:28, David Drysdale ha scritto:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> The last couple of versions of FreeBSD (9.x/10.x) have included the
>> Capsicum security framework [1], which allows security-aware
>> applications to sandbox themselves in a very fine-grained way.  For
>> example, OpenSSH now (>= 6.5) uses Capsicum in its FreeBSD version to
>> restrict sshd's credentials checking process, to reduce the chances of
>> credential leakage.

Aside from OpenSSH, I've also been working on implementing Capsicum,
in other userspace software.



>
>
> Hi David,
>
> we've had similar goals in QEMU.  QEMU can be used as a virtual machine
> monitor from the command line, but it also has an API that lets a management
> tool drive QEMU via AF_UNIX sockets.  Long term, we would like to have a
> restricted mode for QEMU where all file descriptors are obtained via
> SCM_RIGHTS or /dev/fd, and syscalls can be locked down.
>
> Currently we do use seccomp v2 BPF filters, but unfortunately this didn't
> help very much.  QEMU supports hotplugging hence the filter must whitelist
> anything that _might_ be used in the future, which is generally... too much.
>
> Something like Capsicum would be really nice because it attaches
> capabilities to file descriptors.  However, I wonder however how extensible
> Capsicum could be, and I am worried about the proliferation of capabilities
> that its design naturally leads to.
>
> Given Linux's previous experience with BPF filters, what do you think about
> attaching specific BPF programs to file descriptors?  Then whenever a
> syscall is run that affects a file descriptor, the BPF program for the file
> descriptor (attached to a struct file* as in Capsicum) would run in addition
> to the process-wide filter.
>
> An equivalent of PR_SET_NO_NEW_PRIVS can also be added to file descriptors,
> so that a program that doesn't lock down syscalls can still lock down the
> operations (including fcntls and ioctls) on specific file descriptors.
>
> Converting FreeBSD capabilities to BPF programs can be easily implemented in
> userspace.
>
>>   [Capsicum also includes 'capability mode', which locks down the
>>   available syscalls so the rights restrictions can't just be bypassed
>>   by opening new file descriptors; I'll describe that separately later.]
>
>
> This can also be implemented in userspace via seccomp and
> PR_SET_NO_NEW_PRIVS.
>
>>   [Policing the rights checks anywhere else, for example at the system
>>   call boundary, isn't a good idea because it opens up the possibility
>>   of time-of-check/time-of-use (TOCTOU) attacks [2] where FDs are
>>   changed (as openat/close/dup2 are allowed in capability mode) between
>>   the 'check' at syscall entry and the 'use' at fget() invocation.]
>
>
> In the case of BPF filters, I wonder if you could stash the BPF
> "environment" somewhere and then use it at fget() invocation. Alternatively,
> it can be reconstructed at fget() time, similar to your introduction of
> fgetr().
>
> Thanks,
>
> Paolo
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