On 8/9/23 21:15, Tushar Sugandhi wrote:
Thanks a lot Stefan for looking into this proposal,
and providing your feedback. We really appreciate it.
On 8/7/23 15:49, Stefan Berger wrote:
On 8/1/23 17:21, James Bottomley wrote:
On Tue, 2023-08-01 at 12:12 -0700, Sush Shringarputale wrote:
[...]
Truncating IMA log to reclaim memory is not feasible, since it makes
the log go out of sync with the TPM PCR quote making remote
attestation fail.
This assumption isn't entirely true. It's perfectly possible to shard
an IMA log using two TPM2_Quote's for the beginning and end PCR values
to validate the shard. The IMA log could be truncated in the same way
(replace the removed part of the log with a TPM2_Quote and AK, so the
log still validates from the beginning quote to the end).
If you use a TPM2_Quote mechanism to save the log, all you need to do
is have the kernel generate the quote with an internal AK. You can
keep a record of the quote and the AK at the beginning of the truncated
kernel log. If the truncated entries are saved in a file shard it
The truncation seems dangerous to me. Maybe not all the scenarios with an attestation
client (client = reading logs and quoting) are possible then anymore, such as starting
an attestation client only after truncation but a verifier must have witnessed the
system's PCRs and log state before the truncation occurred.
You are correct that truncation on it’s own is dangerous. It needs to be
accompanied by (a) saving the IMA log data to disk as snapshots, (b) adding the
necessary TPM PCR quotes to the current IMA log (as James mentioned above),
(c) attestation clients having an ability to send the past snapshots to the
remote-attestation-service (verifiers), (d) and verifiers having an ability
to use the snapshots along with current IMA logs for the purpose of attestation.
All these points are explained in the original RFC email in sections B.1 through B.5 [1].
I read it.
Maybe you have dismissed the PCR update counter already...
I am not sure what the PCR update counter is supposed to help with. It won't allow you to detect
missing log events but rather will confuse anyone looking at it when my application extends PCR 12
for example, which also affects the update counter. It's a global counter that increases with every
PCR extension (except PCR 16, 21, 22, 23) and if used as proposed would prevent any application from
extending PCRs.
https://github.com/stefanberger/libtpms/blob/master/src/tpm2/PCR.c#L667
https://github.com/stefanberger/libtpms/blob/master/src/tpm2/PCR.c#L629
https://github.com/stefanberger/libtpms/blob/master/src/tpm2/PCR.c#L161
The shards should will need to be written into some sort of standard location or a config file needs to
be defined, so that everyone knows where to find them and how they are named.
I think an ima-buf (or similar) log entry in IMA log would have to appear at the beginning of the
truncated log stating the value of all PCRs that IMA touched (typically only PCR 10
but it can be others). The needs to be done since the quote itself doesn't
provide the state of the individual PCRs. This would at least allow an attestation
client to re-read the log from the beginning (when it is re-start or started for the
first time after the truncation).
Agreed. See the description of snapshot_aggregate in Section B.5 in the
original RFC email [1].
However, this alone (without the
internal AK quoting the old state) could lead to abuse where I could create totally
fake IMA logs stating the state of the PCRs at the beginning (so the verifier
syncs its internal PCR state to this state).
Yes, the PCR quotes sent to the verifier must be signed by the AK that
is trusted by the verifier. That assumption is true regardless of IMA log
snapshotting feature.
Further, even with the AK-quote that
you propose I may be able to create fake logs and trick a verifier into
trusting the machine IFF it doesn't know what kernel this system was booted with
that I may have hacked to provide a fake AK-quote that just happens to match the
PCR state presented at the beginning of the log.
If the Kernel is compromised, then all-bets are off.
(Regardless of IMA log snapshotting feature.)
=> Can a truncated log be made safe for attestation when the attestation starts
only after the truncation occurred?
Yes. If the “PCR quotes in the snapshot_aggregate event in IMA log”
PCR quote or 'quotes'? Why multiple?
Form your proposal but you may have changed your opinion following what I see in other messages:
"- The Kernel will get the current TPM PCR values and PCR update counter [2]
and store them as template data in a new IMA event "snapshot_aggregate"."
Afaik TPM quote's don't give you the state of the individual PCR values, therefore
I would expect to at least find the 'PCR values' of all the PCRs that IMA touched to
be in the snapshot_aggregate so I can replay all the following events on top of these
PCR values and come up with the values that were used in the "final PCR quote". This
is unless you expect the server to take an automatic snapshot of the values of the
PCRs that it computed while evaluating the log in case it ever needs to go back.
+ "replay of rest of the events in IMA log" results in the “final PCR quotes”
that matches with the “AK signed PCR quotes” sent by the client, then the truncated
IMA log can be trusted. The verifier can either ‘trust’ the “PCR quotes in the
snapshot_aggregate event in IMA log” or it can ask for the (n-1)th snapshot shard
to check the past events.
For anything regarding determining the 'trustworthiness of a system' one would have to
be able to go back to the very beginning of the log *or* remember in what state a
system was when the latest snapshot was taken so that if a restart happens it can resume
with that assumption about state of trustworthiness and know what the values of the PCRs
were at that time so it can resume replaying the log (or the server would get these
values from the log).
The AK quotes by the kernel (which adds a 2nd AK key) that James is proposing
could be useful if the entire log, consisting of multiple shards, is very large and
cannot be transferred from the client to the server in one go so that the server could
evaluate the 'final PCR quote' immediately . However, if a client can indicated 'I will
send more the next time and I have this much more to transfer' and the server allows
this multiple times (until all the 1MB shards of the 20MB log are transferred) then that
kernel AK key would not be necessary since presumably the "final PCR quote", created
by a user space client, would resolve whether the entire log is trustworthy.
=> Even if attestation was occurring 'what' state does an attestation server
need to carry around for an attested-to system so that the truncation is 'safe'
and I cannot create fake AK-quotes and fake IMA logs with initial PCR states?
Assuming most of the client devices take a snapshot at specific checkpoints,
the “PCR quotes in the snapshot_aggregate event in IMA log” will be the same for them.
The remote attestation server will have to remember these golden PCR quotes.
I thought maybe 'golden PCR values'... because those let me replay PCR extensions from
a previous point.
It doesn't have to remember the state of each client device.
Can you give a reason for this? You mean the state doesn't need to be remembered for client
devices whose log hasn't been truncated?
Can I ever restart the client and have it read the truncated log from the
beginning and what type of verification needs to happen on the server then?
Yes, restarting the client should be possible.
Yes, this must be possible.
It seems like the server would have to remember the state of the IMA PCRs upon
last truncation to detect a possible attack. This would make staring to monitor
a system after truncation impossible -- would be good to know these details.
The server is not forced to remember the state of IMA PCRs. It can
always ask for the last n snapshot files (shards) and replay the events. Even
though the data is truncated from the IMA log, it is not totally lost. It is
simply being transferred to the disk. It is saved by UM as snapshot files/shards.
The goal of IMA snapshotting is to reduce the Kernel memory pressure on the
client devices - to save them from out-of-memory errors which are harder to manage
on long running clients. It comes with a cost of additional work on the server
side to attest those clients.
Agreed.
Being said that, in the current proposal, taking a snapshots is totally optional
and controlled by UM attestation clients. If the attestation-clients/services are
not-ready/don’t-want to take advantage of IMA log snapshotting, they don’t have to.
Agreed.
No snapshot will be taken, and the client-service can process the monolithic IMA
log just like they do today.
Agreed.
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/c5737141-7827-1c83-ab38-0119dcfea485@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/#t
should have a beginning and end quote and a record of the AK used.
Since verifiers like Keylime are already using this beginning and end
quote for sharded logs, it's the most natural format to feed to
something externally for verification and it means you don't have to
invent a new format to do the same thing.
Regards,
James
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