Re: [PATCH v3] fanotify, inotify, dnotify, security: add security hook for fs notifications

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

On Mon, Aug 12, 2019 at 11:20 AM Aaron Goidel <acgoide@tycho.nsa.gov> wrote:
> As of now, setting watches on filesystem objects has, at most, applied a
> check for read access to the inode, and in the case of fanotify, requires
> CAP_SYS_ADMIN. No specific security hook or permission check has been
> provided to control the setting of watches. Using any of inotify, dnotify,
> or fanotify, it is possible to observe, not only write-like operations, but
> even read access to a file. Modeling the watch as being merely a read from
> the file is insufficient for the needs of SELinux. This is due to the fact
> that read access should not necessarily imply access to information about
> when another process reads from a file. Furthermore, fanotify watches grant
> more power to an application in the form of permission events. While
> notification events are solely, unidirectional (i.e. they only pass
> information to the receiving application), permission events are blocking.
> Permission events make a request to the receiving application which will
> then reply with a decision as to whether or not that action may be
> completed. This causes the issue of the watching application having the
> ability to exercise control over the triggering process. Without drawing a
> distinction within the permission check, the ability to read would imply
> the greater ability to control an application. Additionally, mount and
> superblock watches apply to all files within the same mount or superblock.
> Read access to one file should not necessarily imply the ability to watch
> all files accessed within a given mount or superblock.
>
> In order to solve these issues, a new LSM hook is implemented and has been
> placed within the system calls for marking filesystem objects with inotify,
> fanotify, and dnotify watches. These calls to the hook are placed at the
> point at which the target path has been resolved and are provided with the
> path struct, the mask of requested notification events, and the type of
> object on which the mark is being set (inode, superblock, or mount). The
> mask and obj_type have already been translated into common FS_* values
> shared by the entirety of the fs notification infrastructure. The path
> struct is passed rather than just the inode so that the mount is available,
> particularly for mount watches. This also allows for use of the hook by
> pathname-based security modules. However, since the hook is intended for
> use even by inode based security modules, it is not placed under the
> CONFIG_SECURITY_PATH conditional. Otherwise, the inode-based security
> modules would need to enable all of the path hooks, even though they do not
> use any of them.
>
> This only provides a hook at the point of setting a watch, and presumes
> that permission to set a particular watch implies the ability to receive
> all notification about that object which match the mask. This is all that
> is required for SELinux. If other security modules require additional hooks
> or infrastructure to control delivery of notification, these can be added
> by them. It does not make sense for us to propose hooks for which we have
> no implementation. The understanding that all notifications received by the
> requesting application are all strictly of a type for which the application
> has been granted permission shows that this implementation is sufficient in
> its coverage.
>
> Security modules wishing to provide complete control over fanotify must
> also implement a security_file_open hook that validates that the access
> requested by the watching application is authorized. Fanotify has the issue
> that it returns a file descriptor with the file mode specified during
> fanotify_init() to the watching process on event. This is already covered
> by the LSM security_file_open hook if the security module implements
> checking of the requested file mode there. Otherwise, a watching process
> can obtain escalated access to a file for which it has not been authorized.
>
> The selinux_path_notify hook implementation works by adding five new file
> permissions: watch, watch_mount, watch_sb, watch_reads, and watch_with_perm
> (descriptions about which will follow), and one new filesystem permission:
> watch (which is applied to superblock checks). The hook then decides which
> subset of these permissions must be held by the requesting application
> based on the contents of the provided mask and the obj_type. The
> selinux_file_open hook already checks the requested file mode and therefore
> ensures that a watching process cannot escalate its access through
> fanotify.
>
> The watch, watch_mount, and watch_sb permissions are the baseline
> permissions for setting a watch on an object and each are a requirement for
> any watch to be set on a file, mount, or superblock respectively. It should
> be noted that having either of the other two permissions (watch_reads and
> watch_with_perm) does not imply the watch, watch_mount, or watch_sb
> permission. Superblock watches further require the filesystem watch
> permission to the superblock. As there is no labeled object in view for
> mounts, there is no specific check for mount watches beyond watch_mount to
> the inode. Such a check could be added in the future, if a suitable labeled
> object existed representing the mount.
>
> The watch_reads permission is required to receive notifications from
> read-exclusive events on filesystem objects. These events include accessing
> a file for the purpose of reading and closing a file which has been opened
> read-only. This distinction has been drawn in order to provide a direct
> indication in the policy for this otherwise not obvious capability. Read
> access to a file should not necessarily imply the ability to observe read
> events on a file.
>
> Finally, watch_with_perm only applies to fanotify masks since it is the
> only way to set a mask which allows for the blocking, permission event.
> This permission is needed for any watch which is of this type. Though
> fanotify requires CAP_SYS_ADMIN, this is insufficient as it gives implicit
> trust to root, which we do not do, and does not support least privilege.
>
> Signed-off-by: Aaron Goidel <acgoide@tycho.nsa.gov>
> Acked-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
> Acked-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
> ---
> v3:
>   - fixed comment style in security hook
>
> v2:
>   - move initialization of obj_type up to remove duplicate work
>   - convert inotify and fanotify flags to common FS_* flags
> ---
>  fs/notify/dnotify/dnotify.c         | 15 +++++++--
>  fs/notify/fanotify/fanotify_user.c  | 19 ++++++++++--
>  fs/notify/inotify/inotify_user.c    | 14 +++++++--
>  include/linux/lsm_hooks.h           |  9 +++++-
>  include/linux/security.h            | 10 ++++--
>  security/security.c                 |  6 ++++
>  security/selinux/hooks.c            | 47 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  security/selinux/include/classmap.h |  5 +--
>  8 files changed, 113 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-)

Merged into selinux/next, thanks everyone!

-- 
paul moore
www.paul-moore.com