Re: [PATCH 4/5] LSM: Define SELinux function to measure security state

From: Lakshmi Ramasubramanian
Date: Mon Jun 15 2020 - 12:45:51 EST


On 6/15/20 4:57 AM, Stephen Smalley wrote:

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for reviewing the patches.

+void security_state_change(char *lsm_name, void *state, int state_len)
+{
+ ima_lsm_state(lsm_name, state, state_len);
+}
+

What's the benefit of this trivial function instead of just calling
ima_lsm_state() directly?

One of the feedback Casey Schaufler had given earlier was that calling an IMA function directly from SELinux (or, any of the Security Modules) would be a layering violation.

LSM framework (security/security.c) already calls IMA functions now (for example, ima_bprm_check() is called from security_bprm_check()). I followed the same pattern for measuring LSM data as well.

Please let me know if I misunderstood Casey's comment.

+static int selinux_security_state(char **lsm_name, void **state,
+ int *state_len)
+{
+ int rc = 0;
+ char *new_state;
+ static char *security_state_string = "enabled=%d;enforcing=%d";
+
+ *lsm_name = kstrdup("selinux", GFP_KERNEL);
+ if (!*lsm_name)
+ return -ENOMEM;
+
+ new_state = kzalloc(strlen(security_state_string) + 1, GFP_KERNEL);
+ if (!new_state) {
+ kfree(*lsm_name);
+ *lsm_name = NULL;
+ rc = -ENOMEM;
+ goto out;
+ }
+
+ *state_len = sprintf(new_state, security_state_string,
+ !selinux_disabled(&selinux_state),
+ enforcing_enabled(&selinux_state));

I think I mentioned this on a previous version of these patches, but I
would recommend including more than just the enabled and enforcing
states in your measurement. Other low-hanging fruit would be the
other selinux_state booleans (checkreqprot, initialized,
policycap[0..__POLICYDB_CAPABILITY_MAX]). Going a bit further one
could take a hash of the loaded policy by using security_read_policy()
and then computing a hash using whatever hash ima prefers over the
returned data,len pair. You likely also need to think about how to
allow future extensibility of the state in a backward-compatible
manner, so that future additions do not immediately break systems
relying on older measurements.


Sure - I will address this one in the next update.

thanks,
-lakshmi