Re: ÐÑÐÐÑ: VFS, NFS security bug? Should CAP_MKNOD and CAP_LINUX_IMMUTABLE be added toCAP_FS_MASK?

From: Serge E. Hallyn
Date: Mon Mar 16 2009 - 19:13:55 EST


Quoting Stephen Smalley (sds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx):
> On Mon, 2009-03-16 at 13:49 -0500, Serge E. Hallyn wrote:
> > Quoting Stephen Smalley (sds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx):
> > > On Fri, 2009-03-13 at 14:00 -0500, Serge E. Hallyn wrote:
> > > > Quoting Igor Zhbanov (izh1979@xxxxxxxxx):
> > > > > But ordinary users can't create devices. It seems to me that in time
> > > > > of implementation of capabilities in kernel 2.4, capabilities related
> > > > > to filesystem was added first. And mark for them contains all above in
> > > > > header file. And when CAP_MKNOD was added later, author just forget to
> > > > > update mask.
> > > > >
> > > > > If mask was designed to drop all filesystem related capabilities, then
> > > > > it must be expanded, because ordinary users cannot create devices etc.
> > > >
> > > > I think you thought Bruce was saying we shouldn't change the set of
> > > > capabilities, but he was just asking exactly what changes Michael was
> > > > interested in.
> > > >
> > > > Igor, thanks for finding this. I never got your original message. Do
> > > > you have a patdch to add the two capabilities? Do you think the
> > > > other two I mentioned (CAP_SYS_ADMIN and CAP_SETFCAP) need to be
> > > > added too?
> > > >
> > > > I've added Andrew Morgan, LSM and SELinux mailing lists to get another
> > > > opinion about adding those two. In particular, we'd be adding them
> > > > to the fs_masks becuase CAP_SYS_ADMIN lets you change the selinux
> > > > label, and CAP_SETFCAP lets you change the file capabilities.
> > >
> > > I'd be inclined against adding CAP_SYS_ADMIN to the mask; note that it
> > > is only checked for setting SELinux security contexts (or more broadly
> > > any attributes in the security namespace) when SELinux is disabled. In
> > > the SELinux-enabled case, we are checking SELinux-specific permissions
> > > when setting the SELinux attributes, whether on the client or the
> > > server.
> >
> > But that's exactly why it seemed like it ought to be in there. If
> > SELinux is enabled, then SELinux will continue to perform it's own
> > checks based on security context and ignoring privileged root. But
> > outside of that, since we are in a root-is-privileged mode, should it
> > not be the case that having fsuid=0 means that you can set extended
> > attributes in the security namespace?
> >
> > Conversely, if setting fsuid to non-zero, shouldn't all of the
> > privileged ways of setting file attributes be lost? Or, will we run
> > into a problem where software wanted to set its fsuid to non-0 but
> > still be able to call sethostname(2), for instance? In which case
> > we simply cannot put CAP_SYS_ADMIN in CAP_FS_MASK.
> >
> > I guess it comes back down to whether those xattrs are considered a
> > security attribute or a simple file property.
>
> Well, they are a security attribute, but CAP_SYS_ADMIN was never
> supposed to cover them. In fact, none of the upstream security modules

So do you think it makes sense to have CAP_MAC_ADMIN and CAP_FOWNER
in CAP_FS_MASK? In other words are you objecting to CAP_SYS_ADMIN
because of all of its other implications, or because you disagree
that labels for security modules should be treated as mere fs data
here?

> uses CAP_SYS_ADMIN to control setting of its own attributes:
> - SELinux applies a DAC check and its own set of MAC file permission
> checks,
> - Smack applies CAP_MAC_ADMIN,
> - Capabilities applies CAP_SETFCAP.
>
> Checking CAP_SYS_ADMIN was really just a fallback to prevent unchecked
> setting of attributes in the no-LSM case. It might make more sense to
> return EOPNOTSUPP for any attributes unknown to the enabled security

I suspect that would create a LOT of bug reports. Would requiring
CAP_MAC_ADMIN seem reasonable?

> module and require you to enable the desired module before setting the
> attributes these days.
> http://marc.info/?t=107428809400002&r=1&w=2
>
> I don't think this will make any difference for labeled NFS at present,
> as the current labeled NFS patches only export the MAC label attribute
> if the server has the MAC model enabled. So CAP_SYS_ADMIN won't get
> checked regardless.
>
> Trusted namespace is another case where CAP_SYS_ADMIN check is applied
> on file operations.

Which seems like all the more reason why CAP_SYS_ADMIN would need to
be added to the CAP_FS_MASK. Or do you mean that check should also be
changed for something else? (CAP_MAC_ADMIN, or some new CAP_FS_XATTR?)

-serge
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