Date:	Thu, 16 Jul 2015 17:45:53 -0700
From:	Casey Schaufler <casey@...aufler-ca.com>
To:	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>
CC:	Seth Forshee <seth.forshee@...onical.com>,
	"Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>,
	Alexander Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
	Linux FS Devel <linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org>,
	LSM List <linux-security-module@...r.kernel.org>,
	SELinux-NSA <selinux@...ho.nsa.gov>,
	Serge Hallyn <serge.hallyn@...onical.com>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/7] Initial support for user namespace owned mounts

On 7/16/2015 4:29 PM, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 4:08 PM, Casey Schaufler <casey@...aufler-ca.com> wrote:
>> On 7/16/2015 3:27 PM, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
>>> On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 2:42 PM, Casey Schaufler <casey@...aufler-ca.com> wrote:
>>>> You want to provide a mechanism whereby an unprivileged user (Seth)
>>>> can mount a filesystem for his own use. You want full filesystem
>>>> semantics, but you're willing to accept restrictions on certain
>>>> filesystem features to avoid opening security holes. You are not
>>>> willing to accept restrictions that make the filesystem unusable,
>>>> such as making it read-only.
>>>>
>>>> I am going to present a suggestion. Feel free to correct my
>>>> assumptions and my reasoning. For simplicity let's use loop-back
>>>> mounting of a filesystem contained in a file as an example. The
>>>> principles should apply to newly created memory based filesystems
>>>> or disk partitions "owned" by Seth.
>>>>
>>>> Seth wants to mount a file (~seth/myfs) which contains an ext4
>>>> filesystem. There is already a filesystem object, with security
>>>> attributes, that the system knows how to deal with. If Seth mounts
>>>> this as a filesystem he, and potentially other people, will be
>>>> able to access the content of this object without accessing the
>>>> object itself.
>>>>
>>>>         seth$ mount --justforme -t ext4 ~seth/myfs /tmp/seth
>>>>         seth$ chmod 777 /tmp/seth
>>>>         seth$ ls -la /tmp/seth
>>>>         drwxrwxrwx.  3  seth     seth   260 Jul 16 12:59 .
>>>>         drwxrwxrwxt 18  root     root  4069 Jul 16 11:13 ..
>>>>         seth$
>>>>
>>>> Everything's fine at this point. Wilma is also using the system,
>>>> being the sort who likes to hide things in out of the way places
>>>>
>>>>         wilma$ cp ~/scandals /tmp/seth
>>>>         wilma$ chmod 600 /tmp/seth/scandals
>>> This is already impossible as described.  Seth can only mount the
>>> filesystem in a private mount namespace inside a user namespace that
>>> he created.  Wilma can't see it unless Seth passes an fd to Wilma and
>>> Wilma accepts and uses it.
>> But you do have multiple UIDs withing your user namespace, right?
>> There are processes running as someone other than seth, right?
>>
> Only if root set it up that way.  For example, root could set up
> "subuids" (this is a userspace concept) that belong to Seth.  These
> would be uids that Seth controls and that represent subsets of Seth's
> authority. Wilma wouldn't be one of these subuids unless she was
> somehow part of Seth (or if root completely screwed up).

Or if root had some really unexpected and inappropriate ideas
on what qualifies as "clever". But I'll back off. It looks like
this particular objection of mine is covered.

>
>>>> puts her list of scandals on the unsuspecting filesystem, and changes
>>>> the mode to ensure that no one can find out what went on after the
>>>> office party.
>>>>
>>>> Seth unmounts /tmp/seth. He looks in ~seth/myfs, finds out what really
>>>> happened at the office party, and the story goes from there.
>>>>
>>>> Wilma did everything correctly according to the system security policy,
>>>> but the system security policy did not protect her as advertised. The
>>>> system was tricked into behaving as if it was in control of the content
>>>> of the filesystem when in fact it was not.
>>> I would argue that, if Wilma writes to some place described by an fd
>>> and doesn't verify where she's writing to, then she has no expectation
>>> of privacy.  After all, she could just *tell* Seth directly whatever
>>> she wants (assuming she can communicate with Seth in the first place).
>> Don't ascribe either wisdom or good intentions to Wilma.
> In that case, I'll mention the futility of solving the problem, even
> without user namespaces.  If Wilma tells Seth something, he's going to
> find out.  If Wilma pokes it (in whatever form) into an fd provided by
> Seth, then Seth is extremely likely to find out, regardless of what
> root or the MAC owner tries to do.

I'll buy that, too. I still get queasy every time someone
tells me that passing file descriptors is a security feature.

> If Wilma writes to a path that's mounted in her namespace, then, sure,
> overall policy associated with her namespace (which, in your example,
> is the root namespace) must apply.  But Seth can't mount things into
> Wilma's namespace without having CAP_SYS_ADMIN in that namespace and,
> if he has CAP_SYS_ADMIN, it's already game over.

And so long as it's restricted to the namespace ...
I'm starting to get it now.

>>>> One way to fix this problem is for unprivileged mounts to recognize the
>>>> attributes of the object mounted and to propagate those attributes to all
>>>> the objects they present. All files on /tmp/seth would be owned by seth
>>>> and protected by the mode bits, ACL and LSM requirements of ~/seth/myfs.
>>> This is impossible to enforce, because Seth could use FUSE instead of ext4.
>> I never said that things aren't already broken. And, if you want
>> to ignore the potential DAC issues (read, negative groups) just
>> do it for the LSM xattrs.
>>
> Negative groups are a solved problem, I believe.

My position is that there's a workaround but that the
design is still fundamentally flawed. 

>
>>>> opening a file on /tmp/seth would require the same permissions as opening
>>>> the file containing the mounted filesystem. These attributes would have to
>>>> be immutable, or at least demonstrably more restrictive (chmod might be
>>>> allowed in some cases, but chown would never be) when changed. I don't see
>>>> how a user other than seth could create a new file, as you'd either have
>>>> a magical change in ownership or a false sense of security.
>>> This would be a very harsh restriction.  Seth might legitimately want
>>> to give a user access to a file on backing store he owns without
>>> giving that user access to the backing store.  Root on a normal system
>>> does that all the time.
>> You already said that it was impossible for Wilma to get
>> access, so how is this more restrictive? Besides, Seth can
>> always set the mode on ~/seth so that Wilma can't read the
>> files it contains. This isn't an old problem or a novel
>> solution.
> Seth can pass an fd around.  This is actually a plausible thing to do:
> Seth creates a userns to sandbox himself, mounts some FUSE thing in
> there, and passes an fd out for the benefit of some daemon.  That
> daemon had better validate the thing before using it, though.

Point. It won't, but it should.

> I really don't see the benefit of making up extra rules that apply to
> users outside a userns who try to access specifically a filesystem
> with backing store.  They wouldn't make sense for filesystems without
> backing store.

Sure it would. For Smack, it would be the label a file would be
created with, which would be the label of the process creating
the memory based filesystem. For SELinux the rules are more a
touch more sophisticated, but I'm sure that Paul or Stephen could
come up with how to determine it.

The point, looping all the way back to the beginning, where we
were talking about just ignoring the labels on the filesystem,
is that if you use the same Smack label on the files in the
filesystem as the backing store file has, we'll all be happy.
If that label isn't something user can write to, he won't be
able to write to the mounted objects, either. If there is no
backing store then use the label of the process creating the
filesystem, which will be the user, which will mean everything
will work hunky dory.

Yes, there's work involved, but I doubt there's a lot. Getting
the label from the backing store or the creating process is
simple enough.


>>>> If you can mount a filesystem such that the labels are ignored you
>>>> are effectively specifying that the Smack label on the files be
>>>> determined by the defaulting rules. With CAP_MAC_ADMIN that's fine.
>>>> Without it, it's not.
>>> Can you explain what the threat model is here?  I don't see what it is
>>> that you're trying to prevent.
>> Um, OK.
>> The filesystem has files with a hundred different Smack labels on it.
>> I mount it as an unlabeled filesystem and everything is readable by
>> everyone. Bad jojo.
> I still don't understand.  If it's a filesystem backed by a file that
> Seth has RW access to, then Seth can read everything on it, full stop.
> The security labels in the filesystem are irrelevant.

Well, they can't be trusted, if that's what you mean.
That's why I'm saying that the objects exposed by mounting
this backing store need to be treated with the same security
attributes as the backing store. Fudge it for DAC if you are
so inclined, but I think it's the right way to go for MAC.

> This is like saying that, if you put restrictive labels in the
> filesystem that lives on /dev/sda2 and give Seth ownership of
> /dev/sda2, then you expect Seth to be unable to bypass the policy
> specifies by your labels.

Consider the Smack label on /dev/sda2. Smack does not care
who owns it, just what the Smack label is. Just like on
~/seth/myfs. The backing store "object" is /dev/sda2 in the
one case, ~/seth/myfs in the other, and something in the ether
for a memory based filesystem. So long as the labels of the
files exposed on the mount point match those of the backing
store "object", Smack is going to be happy. Since you're
running without privilege, you can't change the labels on
the files.

Now Seth, being the sneaky person that he is, could change
the Smack labels on the files in the backing store while it's
offline. Since he has access to the backing store, he can't
give himself more access by changing the labels within the
filesystem. He can give himself less, but I'm OK with that.

> Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

Probably, but I'm undoubtedly doing the same.

If you're going to be at LinuxCon in Seattle we should
continue this discussion over the beverage of your choice.

>>>>> Your point is taken about my less-than-expert opinion about the other
>>>>> security modules. We should at minimum get acks from the maintainers of
>>>>> those modules that unprivileged mounts will not compromise MAC.
>>>> I am the Smack maintainer. Unprivileged mounts as you have
>>>> described them compromise MAC. They compromise DAC, too.
>>>>
>>> How do they compromise DAC?
>> Wilma's expectation (or the application running with a mapped UID)
>> that chmod will keep Seth out of the file.
> That was never true.  If Seth has an open fd, Wilma can chmod all day
> and it won't matter.  In this example, Seth owns the entire filesystem
> along with its backing store.
>
> --Andy
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