On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 8:57 PM, Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > >> On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 11:33 AM, Eric W. Biederman >> <ebiederm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>> Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: >>>> >>>> Well, I don't know about less weird, but it would leave a unneeded >>>> hole in the permission checks. >>> >>> To be clear the current patch has my: >>> >>> Nacked-by: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> >>> >>> The code is buggy, and poorly thought through. Your lack of interest in >>> fixing the bugs in your patch is distressing. >> >> I'm not sure where you see me having a "lack of interest". The >> existing cap-checking sysctls have a corner-case bug, which is >> orthogonal to this change. > > That certainly doesn't sound like you have any plans to change anything > there. Again, not sure why you think that. My primary role in kernel development is fixing or helping coordinate fixing of security issues and features. I already acknowledged the issue (it is a corner case, and no one seems to debate that). I'm working based on priorities; I have a long list of things to do. :) >>> So broken code, not willing to fix. No. We are not merging this sysctl. >> >> I think you're jumping to conclusions. :) > > I think I am the maintainer. Sure, no debate there. In fact, I'm certain you're the maintainer. :) > What you are proposing is very much something that is only of interst to > people who are not using user namespaces. It is fatally flawed as > a way to avoid new attack surfaces for people who don't care as the > sysctl leaves user namespaces enabled by default. It is fatally flawed > as remediation to recommend to people to change if a new user namespace > related but is discovered. Any running process that happens to be > created while user namespace creation was enabled will continue to > exist. Effectively a reboot will be required as part of a mitigation. > Many sysadmins will get that wrong. I disagree. The same kinds of issues exist with any of the *_restrict sysctls: if you turn them on later, things that happened before are still going to be a problem. You'll have already leaked a kernel base address, etc. This would be no different. I'm open to having this sysctl kill all CLONE_NEWUSERed process trees, if you think that'll be more useful? > I can't possibly see your sysctl as proposed achieving it's goals. A > person has to be entirely too aware of subtlety and nuance to use it > effectively. Again, I disagree. There are plenty of people who want to have user ns disabled. This gives them the knob to do so. >> This feature is already implemented by two distros, and likely wanted >> by others. We cannot ignore that. The sysctl default doesn't change >> the existing behavior, so this doesn't get in your way at all. Can you >> please respond to my earlier email where I rebutted each of your >> arguments against it? Just saying "no" and putting words in my mouth >> isn't very productive. > > Calling people who make mistakes insane is not a rebuttal. In security I said this: >> Any admin that decides to just turn off CLONE_NEWUSER in the middle of >> still using it is insane. I don't think this breeds any false sense of >> security as most sysctls are set at boot time. I was arguing that admins that use the sysctl are not going to be the admins that are using containers already. I didn't mean it as "making a mistake is insane" but rather "it would appear that a person using both would be seeking opposing goals". > usability matters, and your sysctl has low usability. Unsurprisingly, we disagree here too. This sysctl serves as an attack surface reduction tool. I never saw it as a way to evict existing containers. > Further you seem to have missed something crucial in your understanding. > As was explained earlier the sysctl was added to ubuntu to allow early > adopters to experiment not as a long term way of managing user > namespaces. It's not about management: the audience of the sysctl is only those that are not using user namespaces. Providing attack surface reduction tools to admins is a net win for Linux security as a whole. We both want the same thing: a safer Linux environment. There's no debate that having user ns exposes a larger attack surface than not having it. Being able to disable it for people not interested in using user ns means a reduction in their attack surface. > What sounds like a generally useful feature that would cover your use > case and many others is a per user limit on the number of user > namespaces users may create. That sounds fine to me. Are you thinking of a new RLIMIT, or something else? I don't need a sysctl, I just want a way to effectively disable user ns. -Kees -- Kees Cook Chrome OS & Brillo Security -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-doc" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
