On Tue, Nov 14, 2023 at 10:51 AM Ondrej Mosnacek <omosnace@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Currently, SELinux doesn't allow distinguishing between kernel threads
> and userspace processes that are started before the policy is first
> loaded - both get the label corresponding to the kernel SID. The only
> way a process that persists from early boot can get a meaningful label
> is by doing a voluntary dyntransition or re-executing itself.
>
> Reusing the kernel label for userspace processes is problematic for
> several reasons:
> 1. The kernel is considered to be a privileged domain and generally
> needs to have a wide range of permissions allowed to work correctly,
> which prevents the policy writer from effectively hardening against
> early boot processes that might remain running unintentionally after
> the policy is loaded (they represent a potential extra attack surface
> that should be mitigated).
> 2. Despite the kernel being treated as a privileged domain, the policy
> writer may want to impose certain special limitations on kernel
> threads that may conflict with the requirements of intentional early
> boot processes. For example, it is a good hardening practice to limit
> what executables the kernel can execute as usermode helpers and to
> confine the resulting usermode helper processes. However, a
> (legitimate) process surviving from early boot may need to execute a
> different set of executables.
> 3. As currently implemented, overlayfs remembers the security context of
> the process that created an overlayfs mount and uses it to bound
> subsequent operations on files using this context. If an overlayfs
> mount is created before the SELinux policy is loaded, these "mounter"
> checks are made against the kernel context, which may clash with
> restrictions on the kernel domain (see 2.).
>
> To resolve this, introduce a new initial SID (reusing the slot of the
> former "init" initial SID) that will be assigned to any userspace
> process started before the policy is first loaded. This is easy to do,
> as we can simply label any process that goes through the
> bprm_creds_for_exec LSM hook with the new init-SID instead of
> propagating the kernel SID from the parent.
>
> To provide backwards compatibility for existing policies that are
> unaware of this new semantic of the "init" initial SID, introduce a new
> policy capability "userspace_initial_context" and set the "init" SID to
> the same context as the "kernel" SID unless this capability is set by
> the policy.
>
> Another small backwards compatibility measure is needed in
> security_sid_to_context_core() for before the initial SELinux policy
> load - see the code comment for explanation.
>
> Signed-off-by: Ondrej Mosnacek <omosnace@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>
> The last version of this patch has been applied [1] and then reverted
> [2] because of a regression breaking userspace before the policy is
> loaded [3]. This version fixes it using Christian's suggestion [4].
>
> Paul's suggestion from [5] isn't really viable because both existing
> users of security_get_initial_sid_context() need the current behavior.
>
> As for security_context_to_sid_core(), it doesn't seem desirable to
> remove the ability to e.g. write "init" to /proc/self/attr/exec to
> get the exec_sid to SECINITSID_INIT as that shouldn't affect backwards
> compatibility. However, the caveat is that after setting something to
> SECINITSID_INIT via "init", a query for the string form of the context
> will return the "fake" value "kernel" instead of the expected "init".
>
> [1] 5b0eea835d4e ("selinux: introduce an initial SID for early boot processes")
> [2] 817199e006e5 ("selinux: revert SECINITSID_INIT support")
> [3] https://lore.kernel.org/selinux/87edkseqf8.fsf@mail.lhotse/
> [4] https://lore.kernel.org/selinux/CAJ2a_DdZHFTHiRu5+ZENAwUq1Cor-jVoE9qdhb2x5uSej-MaRA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/
> [5] https://lore.kernel.org/selinux/CAHC9VhQVQv78Xr1bDoJcuT5s441Lvc8AanMvMh8KXG-PuPTVAQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/
>
> security/selinux/hooks.c | 28 +++++++++++++++++++
> .../selinux/include/initial_sid_to_string.h | 2 +-
> security/selinux/include/policycap.h | 1 +
> security/selinux/include/policycap_names.h | 1 +
> security/selinux/include/security.h | 6 ++++
> security/selinux/ss/policydb.c | 27 ++++++++++++++++++
> security/selinux/ss/services.c | 13 ++++++++-
> 7 files changed, 76 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
Ondrej or Michael, can either of you confirm that the regression found
in previous revisions of this patch have been resolved in v3?
--
paul-moore.com
