Commit Graph

30 Commits

Author SHA1 Message Date
James Morris
86d688984d Merge branch 'master' into next 2008-08-28 10:47:34 +10:00
David Howells
5cd9c58fbe security: Fix setting of PF_SUPERPRIV by __capable()
Fix the setting of PF_SUPERPRIV by __capable() as it could corrupt the flags
the target process if that is not the current process and it is trying to
change its own flags in a different way at the same time.

__capable() is using neither atomic ops nor locking to protect t->flags.  This
patch removes __capable() and introduces has_capability() that doesn't set
PF_SUPERPRIV on the process being queried.

This patch further splits security_ptrace() in two:

 (1) security_ptrace_may_access().  This passes judgement on whether one
     process may access another only (PTRACE_MODE_ATTACH for ptrace() and
     PTRACE_MODE_READ for /proc), and takes a pointer to the child process.
     current is the parent.

 (2) security_ptrace_traceme().  This passes judgement on PTRACE_TRACEME only,
     and takes only a pointer to the parent process.  current is the child.

     In Smack and commoncap, this uses has_capability() to determine whether
     the parent will be permitted to use PTRACE_ATTACH if normal checks fail.
     This does not set PF_SUPERPRIV.

Two of the instances of __capable() actually only act on current, and so have
been changed to calls to capable().

Of the places that were using __capable():

 (1) The OOM killer calls __capable() thrice when weighing the killability of a
     process.  All of these now use has_capability().

 (2) cap_ptrace() and smack_ptrace() were using __capable() to check to see
     whether the parent was allowed to trace any process.  As mentioned above,
     these have been split.  For PTRACE_ATTACH and /proc, capable() is now
     used, and for PTRACE_TRACEME, has_capability() is used.

 (3) cap_safe_nice() only ever saw current, so now uses capable().

 (4) smack_setprocattr() rejected accesses to tasks other than current just
     after calling __capable(), so the order of these two tests have been
     switched and capable() is used instead.

 (5) In smack_file_send_sigiotask(), we need to allow privileged processes to
     receive SIGIO on files they're manipulating.

 (6) In smack_task_wait(), we let a process wait for a privileged process,
     whether or not the process doing the waiting is privileged.

I've tested this with the LTP SELinux and syscalls testscripts.

Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Serge Hallyn <serue@us.ibm.com>
Acked-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
Acked-by: Andrew G. Morgan <morgan@kernel.org>
Acked-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Signed-off-by: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>
2008-08-14 22:59:43 +10:00
Casey Schaufler
1544623536 smack: limit privilege by label
There have been a number of requests to make the Smack LSM
enforce MAC even in the face of privilege, either capability
based or superuser based. This is not universally desired,
however, so it seems desirable to make it optional. Further,
at least one legacy OS implemented a scheme whereby only
processes running with one particular label could be exempt
from MAC. This patch supports these three cases.

If /smack/onlycap is empty (unset or null-string) privilege
is enforced in the normal way.

If /smack/onlycap contains a label only processes running with
that label may be MAC exempt.

If the label in /smack/onlycap is the star label ("*") the
semantics of the star label combine with the privilege
restrictions to prevent any violations of MAC, even in the
presence of privilege.

Again, this will be independent of the privilege scheme.

Signed-off-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
Reviewed-by: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>
2008-08-05 10:55:53 +10:00
Al Viro
b77b0646ef [PATCH] pass MAY_OPEN to vfs_permission() explicitly
... and get rid of the last "let's deduce mask from nameidata->flags"
bit.

Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
2008-07-26 20:53:22 -04:00
James Morris
6f0f0fd496 security: remove register_security hook
The register security hook is no longer required, as the capability
module is always registered.  LSMs wishing to stack capability as
a secondary module should do so explicitly.

Signed-off-by: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>
Acked-by: Stephen Smalley <sds@tycho.nsa.gov>
Acked-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
2008-07-14 15:04:06 +10:00
Stephen Smalley
006ebb40d3 Security: split proc ptrace checking into read vs. attach
Enable security modules to distinguish reading of process state via
proc from full ptrace access by renaming ptrace_may_attach to
ptrace_may_access and adding a mode argument indicating whether only
read access or full attach access is requested.  This allows security
modules to permit access to reading process state without granting
full ptrace access.  The base DAC/capability checking remains unchanged.

Read access to /proc/pid/mem continues to apply a full ptrace attach
check since check_mem_permission() already requires the current task
to already be ptracing the target.  The other ptrace checks within
proc for elements like environ, maps, and fds are changed to pass the
read mode instead of attach.

In the SELinux case, we model such reading of process state as a
reading of a proc file labeled with the target process' label.  This
enables SELinux policy to permit such reading of process state without
permitting control or manipulation of the target process, as there are
a number of cases where programs probe for such information via proc
but do not need to be able to control the target (e.g. procps,
lsof, PolicyKit, ConsoleKit).  At present we have to choose between
allowing full ptrace in policy (more permissive than required/desired)
or breaking functionality (or in some cases just silencing the denials
via dontaudit rules but this can hide genuine attacks).

This version of the patch incorporates comments from Casey Schaufler
(change/replace existing ptrace_may_attach interface, pass access
mode), and Chris Wright (provide greater consistency in the checking).

Note that like their predecessors __ptrace_may_attach and
ptrace_may_attach, the __ptrace_may_access and ptrace_may_access
interfaces use different return value conventions from each other (0
or -errno vs. 1 or 0).  I retained this difference to avoid any
changes to the caller logic but made the difference clearer by
changing the latter interface to return a bool rather than an int and
by adding a comment about it to ptrace.h for any future callers.

Signed-off-by:  Stephen Smalley <sds@tycho.nsa.gov>
Acked-by: Chris Wright <chrisw@sous-sol.org>
Signed-off-by: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>
2008-07-14 15:01:47 +10:00
Casey Schaufler
e97dcb0ead Smack: fuse mount hang fix
The d_instantiate hook for Smack can hang on the root inode of a
filesystem if the file system code has not really done all the set-up.
Fuse is known to encounter this problem.

This change detects an attempt to instantiate a root inode and addresses
it early in the processing, before any attempt is made to do something
that might hang.

Signed-off-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
Tested-by: Luiz Fernando N. Capitulino <lcapitulino@mandriva.com.br>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2008-06-04 08:50:43 -07:00
Oleg Nesterov
3b5e9e53c6 signals: cleanup security_task_kill() usage/implementation
Every implementation of ->task_kill() does nothing when the signal comes from
the kernel.  This is correct, but means that check_kill_permission() should
call security_task_kill() only for SI_FROMUSER() case, and we can remove the
same check from ->task_kill() implementations.

(sadly, check_kill_permission() is the last user of signal->session/__session
 but we can't s/task_session_nr/task_session/ here).

NOTE: Eric W.  Biederman pointed out cap_task_kill() should die, and I think
he is very right.

Signed-off-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@tv-sign.ru>
Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Cc: Serge Hallyn <serue@us.ibm.com>
Cc: Roland McGrath <roland@redhat.com>
Cc: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
Cc: David Quigley <dpquigl@tycho.nsa.gov>
Cc: Eric Paris <eparis@redhat.com>
Cc: Harald Welte <laforge@gnumonks.org>
Cc: Pavel Emelyanov <xemul@openvz.org>
Cc: Stephen Smalley <sds@tycho.nsa.gov>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2008-04-30 08:29:34 -07:00
Ahmed S. Darwish
d20bdda6d4 Smack: Integrate Smack with Audit
Setup the new Audit hooks for Smack. SELinux Audit rule fields are recycled
to avoid `auditd' userspace modifications. Currently only equality testing
is supported on labels acting as a subject (AUDIT_SUBJ_USER) or as an object
(AUDIT_OBJ_USER).

Signed-off-by: Ahmed S. Darwish <darwish.07@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
2008-04-30 08:34:10 +10:00
David Howells
e52c1764f1 Security: Make secctx_to_secid() take const secdata
Make secctx_to_secid() take constant secdata.

Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
Signed-off-by: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>
2008-04-30 08:23:51 +10:00
Linus Torvalds
9781db7b34 Merge branch 'audit.b50' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/audit-current
* 'audit.b50' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/audit-current:
  [PATCH] new predicate - AUDIT_FILETYPE
  [patch 2/2] Use find_task_by_vpid in audit code
  [patch 1/2] audit: let userspace fully control TTY input auditing
  [PATCH 2/2] audit: fix sparse shadowed variable warnings
  [PATCH 1/2] audit: move extern declarations to audit.h
  Audit: MAINTAINERS update
  Audit: increase the maximum length of the key field
  Audit: standardize string audit interfaces
  Audit: stop deadlock from signals under load
  Audit: save audit_backlog_limit audit messages in case auditd comes back
  Audit: collect sessionid in netlink messages
  Audit: end printk with newline
2008-04-29 11:41:22 -07:00
David Howells
8f0cfa52a1 xattr: add missing consts to function arguments
Add missing consts to xattr function arguments.

Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Cc: Andreas Gruenbacher <agruen@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2008-04-29 08:06:06 -07:00
Serge E. Hallyn
1236cc3cf8 smack: use cap_task_prctl
With the introduction of per-process securebits, the capabilities-related
prctl callbacks were moved into cap_task_prctl().  Have smack use
cap_task_prctl() so that PR_SET_KEEPCAPS is defined.

Signed-off-by: Serge E. Hallyn <serue@us.ibm.com>
Acked-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2008-04-28 08:58:27 -07:00
Casey Schaufler
30aa4faf62 smack: make smk_cipso_doi() and smk_unlbl_ambient()
The functions smk_cipso_doi and smk_unlbl_ambient are not used outside
smackfs.c and should hence be static.

Signed-off-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2008-04-28 08:58:27 -07:00
Harvey Harrison
c60264c494 smack: fix integer as NULL pointer warning in smack_lsm.c
security/smack/smack_lsm.c:1257:16: warning: Using plain integer as NULL pointer

Signed-off-by: Harvey Harrison <harvey.harrison@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2008-04-28 08:58:27 -07:00
Eric Paris
2532386f48 Audit: collect sessionid in netlink messages
Previously I added sessionid output to all audit messages where it was
available but we still didn't know the sessionid of the sender of
netlink messages.  This patch adds that information to netlink messages
so we can audit who sent netlink messages.

Signed-off-by: Eric Paris <eparis@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
2008-04-28 06:18:03 -04:00
Al Viro
b5266eb4c8 [PATCH] switch a bunch of LSM hooks from nameidata to path
Namely, ones from namespace.c

Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
2008-04-21 23:13:23 -04:00
Linus Torvalds
3925e6fc1f Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jmorris/security-testing-2.6
* 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jmorris/security-testing-2.6:
  security: fix up documentation for security_module_enable
  Security: Introduce security= boot parameter
  Audit: Final renamings and cleanup
  SELinux: use new audit hooks, remove redundant exports
  Audit: internally use the new LSM audit hooks
  LSM/Audit: Introduce generic Audit LSM hooks
  SELinux: remove redundant exports
  Netlink: Use generic LSM hook
  Audit: use new LSM hooks instead of SELinux exports
  SELinux: setup new inode/ipc getsecid hooks
  LSM: Introduce inode_getsecid and ipc_getsecid hooks
2008-04-18 18:18:30 -07:00
Ahmed S. Darwish
076c54c5bc Security: Introduce security= boot parameter
Add the security= boot parameter. This is done to avoid LSM
registration clashes in case of more than one bult-in module.

User can choose a security module to enable at boot. If no
security= boot parameter is specified, only the first LSM
asking for registration will be loaded. An invalid security
module name will be treated as if no module has been chosen.

LSM modules must check now if they are allowed to register
by calling security_module_enable(ops) first. Modify SELinux
and SMACK to do so.

Do not let SMACK register smackfs if it was not chosen on
boot. Smackfs assumes that smack hooks are registered and
the initial task security setup (swapper->security) is done.

Signed-off-by: Ahmed S. Darwish <darwish.07@gmail.com>
Acked-by: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>
2008-04-19 10:00:51 +10:00
Paul Moore
00447872a6 NetLabel: Allow passing the LSM domain as a shared pointer
Smack doesn't have the need to create a private copy of the LSM "domain" when
setting NetLabel security attributes like SELinux, however, the current
NetLabel code requires a private copy of the LSM "domain".  This patches fixes
that by letting the LSM determine how it wants to pass the domain value.

 * NETLBL_SECATTR_DOMAIN_CPY
   The current behavior, NetLabel assumes that the domain value is a copy and
   frees it when done

 * NETLBL_SECATTR_DOMAIN
   New, Smack-friendly behavior, NetLabel assumes that the domain value is a
   reference to a string managed by the LSM and does not free it when done

Signed-off-by: Paul Moore <paul.moore@hp.com>
Acked-by: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
2008-04-12 19:06:42 -07:00
Ahmed S. Darwish
cb622bbb69 smackfs: remove redundant lock, fix open(,O_RDWR)
Older smackfs was parsing MAC rules by characters, thus a need of locking
write sessions on open() was needed.  This lock is no longer useful now since
each rule is handled by a single write() call.

This is also a bugfix since seq_open() was not called if an open() O_RDWR flag
was given, leading to a seq_read() without an initialized seq_file, thus an
Oops.

Signed-off-by: Ahmed S. Darwish <darwish.07@gmail.com>
Reported-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Acked-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2008-03-24 19:22:19 -07:00
Serge Hallyn
aedb60a67c file capabilities: remove cap_task_kill()
The original justification for cap_task_kill() was as follows:

	check_kill_permission() does appropriate uid equivalence checks.
	However with file capabilities it becomes possible for an
	unprivileged user to execute a file with file capabilities
	resulting in a more privileged task with the same uid.

However now that cap_task_kill() always returns 0 (permission
granted) when p->uid==current->uid, the whole hook is worthless,
and only likely to create more subtle problems in the corner cases
where it might still be called but return -EPERM.  Those cases
are basically when uids are different but euid/suid is equivalent
as per the check in check_kill_permission().

One example of a still-broken application is 'at' for non-root users.

This patch removes cap_task_kill().

Signed-off-by: Serge Hallyn <serge@hallyn.com>
Acked-by: Andrew G. Morgan <morgan@kernel.org>
Earlier-version-tested-by: Luiz Fernando N. Capitulino <lcapitulino@mandriva.com.br>
Acked-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2008-03-20 09:46:36 -07:00
Ahmed S. Darwish
1d252fb870 smack: do not dereference NULL ipc object
In the SYSV ipc msgctl(),semctl(),shmctl() family, if the user passed *_INFO
as the desired operation, no specific object is meant to be controlled and
only system-wide information is returned.  This leads to a NULL IPC object in
the LSM hooks if the _INFO flag is given.

Avoid dereferencing this NULL pointer in Smack ipc *ctl() methods.

Signed-off-by: Ahmed S. Darwish <darwish.07@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2008-03-19 18:53:36 -07:00
Ahmed S. Darwish
b500ce8d24 smackfs: do not trust `count' in inodes write()s
Smackfs write() implementation does not put a higher bound on the number of
bytes to copy from user-space.  This may lead to a DOS attack if a malicious
`count' field is given.

Assure that given `count' is exactly the length needed for a /smack/load rule.
 In case of /smack/cipso where the length is relative, assure that `count'
does not exceed the size needed for a buffer representing maximum possible
number of CIPSO 2.2 categories.

Signed-off-by: Ahmed S. Darwish <darwish.07@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2008-03-13 13:11:43 -07:00
Eric Paris
e000752989 LSM/SELinux: Interfaces to allow FS to control mount options
Introduce new LSM interfaces to allow an FS to deal with their own mount
options.  This includes a new string parsing function exported from the
LSM that an FS can use to get a security data blob and a new security
data blob.  This is particularly useful for an FS which uses binary
mount data, like NFS, which does not pass strings into the vfs to be
handled by the loaded LSM.  Also fix a BUG() in both SELinux and SMACK
when dealing with binary mount data.  If the binary mount data is less
than one page the copy_page() in security_sb_copy_data() can cause an
illegal page fault and boom.  Remove all NFSisms from the SELinux code
since they were broken by past NFS changes.

Signed-off-by: Eric Paris <eparis@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Stephen Smalley <sds@tycho.nsa.gov>
Acked-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
Signed-off-by: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>
2008-03-06 08:40:53 +11:00
Casey Schaufler
bcdca225bf Smack: update for file capabilities
Update the Smack LSM to allow the registration of the capability "module"
as a secondary LSM.  Integrate the new hooks required for file based
capabilities.

Signed-off-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
Cc: Serge Hallyn <serue@us.ibm.com>
Cc: Stephen Smalley <sds@tycho.nsa.gov>
Cc: Paul Moore <paul.moore@hp.com>
Cc: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2008-02-23 17:13:24 -08:00
Casey Schaufler
4bc87e6277 Smack: unlabeled outgoing ambient packets
Smack uses CIPSO labeling, but allows for unlabeled packets by
specifying an "ambient" label that is applied to incoming unlabeled
packets.

Because the other end of the connection may dislike IP options, and ssh
is one know application that behaves thus, it is prudent to respond in
kind.

This patch changes the network labeling behavior such that an outgoing
packet that would be given a CIPSO label that matches the ambient label
is left unlabeled.  An "unlbl" domain is added and the netlabel
defaulting mechanism invoked rather than assuming that everything is
CIPSO.  Locking has been added around changes to the ambient label as
the mechanisms used to do so are more involved.

Signed-off-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
Acked-by: Paul Moore <paul.moore@hp.com>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2008-02-19 07:51:00 -08:00
Jan Blunck
4ac9137858 Embed a struct path into struct nameidata instead of nd->{dentry,mnt}
This is the central patch of a cleanup series. In most cases there is no good
reason why someone would want to use a dentry for itself. This series reflects
that fact and embeds a struct path into nameidata.

Together with the other patches of this series
- it enforced the correct order of getting/releasing the reference count on
  <dentry,vfsmount> pairs
- it prepares the VFS for stacking support since it is essential to have a
  struct path in every place where the stack can be traversed
- it reduces the overall code size:

without patch series:
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
5321639  858418  715768 6895825  6938d1 vmlinux

with patch series:
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
5320026  858418  715768 6894212  693284 vmlinux

This patch:

Switch from nd->{dentry,mnt} to nd->path.{dentry,mnt} everywhere.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: coding-style fixes]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix cifs]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix smack]
Signed-off-by: Jan Blunck <jblunck@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Andreas Gruenbacher <agruen@suse.de>
Acked-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Cc: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2008-02-14 21:13:33 -08:00
Ahmed S. Darwish
2e1d146a19 Smack: check for 'struct socket' with NULL sk
There's a small problem with smack and NFS. A similar report was also
sent here: http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/10/27/85

I've also added similar checks in inode_{get/set}security().  Cheating from
SELinux post_create_socket(), it does the same.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: remove uneeded BUG_ON()]
Signed-off-by: Ahmed S. Darwish <darwish.07@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schuafler-ca.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2008-02-13 16:21:20 -08:00
Casey Schaufler
e114e47377 Smack: Simplified Mandatory Access Control Kernel
Smack is the Simplified Mandatory Access Control Kernel.

Smack implements mandatory access control (MAC) using labels
attached to tasks and data containers, including files, SVIPC,
and other tasks. Smack is a kernel based scheme that requires
an absolute minimum of application support and a very small
amount of configuration data.

Smack uses extended attributes and
provides a set of general mount options, borrowing technics used
elsewhere. Smack uses netlabel for CIPSO labeling. Smack provides
a pseudo-filesystem smackfs that is used for manipulation of
system Smack attributes.

The patch, patches for ls and sshd, a README, a startup script,
and x86 binaries for ls and sshd are also available on

    http://www.schaufler-ca.com

Development has been done using Fedora Core 7 in a virtual machine
environment and on an old Sony laptop.

Smack provides mandatory access controls based on the label attached
to a task and the label attached to the object it is attempting to
access. Smack labels are deliberately short (1-23 characters) text
strings. Single character labels using special characters are reserved
for system use. The only operation applied to Smack labels is equality
comparison. No wildcards or expressions, regular or otherwise, are
used. Smack labels are composed of printable characters and may not
include "/".

A file always gets the Smack label of the task that created it.

Smack defines and uses these labels:

    "*" - pronounced "star"
    "_" - pronounced "floor"
    "^" - pronounced "hat"
    "?" - pronounced "huh"

The access rules enforced by Smack are, in order:

1. Any access requested by a task labeled "*" is denied.
2. A read or execute access requested by a task labeled "^"
   is permitted.
3. A read or execute access requested on an object labeled "_"
   is permitted.
4. Any access requested on an object labeled "*" is permitted.
5. Any access requested by a task on an object with the same
   label is permitted.
6. Any access requested that is explicitly defined in the loaded
   rule set is permitted.
7. Any other access is denied.

Rules may be explicitly defined by writing subject,object,access
triples to /smack/load.

Smack rule sets can be easily defined that describe Bell&LaPadula
sensitivity, Biba integrity, and a variety of interesting
configurations. Smack rule sets can be modified on the fly to
accommodate changes in the operating environment or even the time
of day.

Some practical use cases:

Hierarchical levels. The less common of the two usual uses
for MLS systems is to define hierarchical levels, often
unclassified, confidential, secret, and so on. To set up smack
to support this, these rules could be defined:

   C        Unclass rx
   S        C       rx
   S        Unclass rx
   TS       S       rx
   TS       C       rx
   TS       Unclass rx

A TS process can read S, C, and Unclass data, but cannot write it.
An S process can read C and Unclass. Note that specifying that
TS can read S and S can read C does not imply TS can read C, it
has to be explicitly stated.

Non-hierarchical categories. This is the more common of the
usual uses for an MLS system. Since the default rule is that a
subject cannot access an object with a different label no
access rules are required to implement compartmentalization.

A case that the Bell & LaPadula policy does not allow is demonstrated
with this Smack access rule:

A case that Bell&LaPadula does not allow that Smack does:

    ESPN    ABC   r
    ABC     ESPN  r

On my portable video device I have two applications, one that
shows ABC programming and the other ESPN programming. ESPN wants
to show me sport stories that show up as news, and ABC will
only provide minimal information about a sports story if ESPN
is covering it. Each side can look at the other's info, neither
can change the other. Neither can see what FOX is up to, which
is just as well all things considered.

Another case that I especially like:

    SatData Guard   w
    Guard   Publish w

A program running with the Guard label opens a UDP socket and
accepts messages sent by a program running with a SatData label.
The Guard program inspects the message to ensure it is wholesome
and if it is sends it to a program running with the Publish label.
This program then puts the information passed in an appropriate
place. Note that the Guard program cannot write to a Publish
file system object because file system semanitic require read as
well as write.

The four cases (categories, levels, mutual read, guardbox) here
are all quite real, and problems I've been asked to solve over
the years. The first two are easy to do with traditonal MLS systems
while the last two you can't without invoking privilege, at least
for a while.

Signed-off-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
Cc: Joshua Brindle <method@manicmethod.com>
Cc: Paul Moore <paul.moore@hp.com>
Cc: Stephen Smalley <sds@tycho.nsa.gov>
Cc: Chris Wright <chrisw@sous-sol.org>
Cc: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>
Cc: "Ahmed S. Darwish" <darwish.07@gmail.com>
Cc: Andrew G. Morgan <morgan@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2008-02-05 09:44:20 -08:00