On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 08:58:27AM -0500, Serge E. Hallyn wrote: > Quoting Stefan Hajnoczi (stefanha@xxxxxxxxx): > > On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 11:03 AM, Daniel P. Berrange > > <berrange@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 10:10:27AM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote: > > >> On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 3:46 PM, Daniel P. Berrange <berrange@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > >> > On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 03:20:57PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote: > > >> >> On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 4:31 PM, Daniel P. Berrange <berrange@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > >> >> > On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 04:24:46PM +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote: > > >> >> >> On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 12:15 PM, Daniel P. Berrange > > >> >> >> <berrange@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > >> >> >> > I was at the KVM Forum / LinuxCon last week and there were many > > >> >> >> > interesting things discussed which are relevant to ongoing libvirt > > >> >> >> > development. Here was the list that caught my attention. If I have > > >> >> >> > missed any, fill in the gaps.... > > >> >> >> > > > >> >> >> > - Sandbox/container KVM. The Solaris port of KVM puts QEMU inside > > >> >> >> > a zone so that an exploit of QEMU can't escape into the full OS. > > >> >> >> > Containers are Linux's parallel of Zones, and while not nearly as > > >> >> >> > secure yet, it would still be worth using more containers support > > >> >> >> > to confine QEMU. > > >> >> >> > > >> >> >> Can you elaborate on why Linux containers are "not nearly as secure" > > >> >> >> [as Solaris Zones]? > > >> >> > > > >> >> > Mostly because the Linux namespace functionality is far from complete, > > >> >> > notably lacking proper UID/GID/capability separation, and UID/GID > > >> >> > virtualization wrt filesystems. The longer answer is here: > > >> >> > > > >> >> > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserNamespace > > >> >> > > > >> >> > So at this time you can't build a secure container on Linux, relying > > >> >> > just on DAC alone. You have to add in a MAC layer ontop of the container > > >> >> > to get full security benefits, which obviously defeats the point of > > >> >> > using the container as a backup for failure in the MAC layer. > > >> >> > > >> >> Thanks, that is interesting. I still don't understand why that is a > > >> >> problem. Linux containers (lxc) uses a different pid namespace (no > > >> >> ptrace worries), file system root (restricted to a subdirectory tree), > > >> >> forbids most device nodes, etc. Why does the user namespace matter > > >> >> for security in this case? > > >> > > > >> > A number of reasons really... > > >> > > > >> > If user ID '0' on the host starts a container, and a process inside > > >> > the container does 'setuid(500)', then any user outside the container > > >> > with UID 500 will be able to kill that process. Only user ID '0' should > > >> > have been allowed todo that. > > >> > > > >> > It will also let non-root user IDs on the host OS, start containers > > >> > and have root uid=0 inside the container. > > >> > > > >> > Finally, any files created inside the container with, say, uid 500 > > >> > will be accessible by any other process with UID 500, in either the > > >> > host or any other container > > >> > > >> These points mean that the host can peek inside containers and has > > >> access to their processes/files. But from the point of a libvirt > > >> running inside a container there is no security problem. > > >> > > >> This is kind of like saying that root on the host can modify KVM guest > > >> disk images. That is true but I don't see it as a security problem > > >> because the root on the host is the trusted part of the system. > > >> > > >> >> I think it matters when giving multiple containers access to the same > > >> >> file system. Is that what you'd like to do for libvirt? > > >> > > > >> > Each container would have to share a (readonly) view onto the host > > >> > filesystem so it can see the QEMU emulator install / libraries. There > > >> > would also have to be some writable areas per QEMU container. QEMU > > >> > inside the container would be set to run as some non-root UID (from > > >> > the container's POV). So both problem 1 & 3 above would impact the > > >> > security of this confinement. > > >> > > >> But is there a way to escape confinement? If not, then this is secure. > > > > > > The filesystem UID/GID ownership is the most likely way you can escape > > > the confinement. You would have to be very careful to ensure that each > > > container's view of the filesystem did not include any directories > > > with files that are assigned to another container, since the UID > > > separation would not prevent access to another container's resources. > > > > > > This is rather tedious but could be just about doable, but it gets > > > harder when you throw in things like sysfs and PCI device assignment. > > > eg a guest with PCI device assigned gets given ownership of the files > > > in /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:XX:XX/ and since there is no UID > > > namespacing, this will be accessible to any other container with the > > > same UID. To hack around this when starting up a container you would > > > probably have to bind mount a empty tmpfs over the top of all the > > > PCI device paths you wanted to block in sysfs. > > Which of course is easily undoable by root in the container :) Yep, you'd have to make sure QEMU was none root for it to be at all practical. > > Ah, I hadn't thought of /sys/bus/pci or /sys/bus/usb! > > > > Thanks for the explanation and it does seem like the design would get messy. > > And plenty more, i.e. http://blog.bofh.it/debian/id_413 Cool a nice demo :-) > See http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=27878921 for > someone actively using Smack to help mitigate this (which could also be > done with SELinux). Yes, I've got the same done with SELinux, but haven't posted it for review yet, since it needs more testing and some policy additions https://gitorious.org/~berrange/libvirt/staging/commits/lxc-svirt Of course in the context of this discussion, QEMU already runs under SELinux, and my desire for containers was to act as a safety net for when SELinux fails for some reason (or is disabled by an admin) so back to square one wrt security :-) Daniel -- |: http://berrange.com -o- http://www.flickr.com/photos/dberrange/ :| |: http://libvirt.org -o- http://virt-manager.org :| |: http://autobuild.org -o- http://search.cpan.org/~danberr/ :| |: http://entangle-photo.org -o- http://live.gnome.org/gtk-vnc :| -- libvir-list mailing list libvir-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libvir-list