linux-kernel - Re: [GIT PULL] SELinux patches for v5.8

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Date:   Thu, 4 Jun 2020 08:28:00 -0700
From:   Casey Schaufler <casey@...aufler-ca.com>
To:     Stephen Smalley <stephen.smalley.work@...il.com>
Cc:     James Morris <jmorris@...ei.org>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Paul Moore <paul@...l-moore.com>,
        SElinux list <selinux@...r.kernel.org>,
        LSM List <linux-security-module@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Casey Schaufler <casey@...aufler-ca.com>
Subject: Re: [GIT PULL] SELinux patches for v5.8

On 6/4/2020 5:45 AM, Stephen Smalley wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 3, 2020 at 6:39 PM Casey Schaufler <casey@...aufler-ca.com> wrote:
>> On 6/3/2020 3:12 PM, James Morris wrote:
>>> On Wed, 3 Jun 2020, Casey Schaufler wrote:
>>>
>>>> The use of security modules was expected to be rare.
>>> This is not correct. Capabilities were ported to LSM and stacked from the
>>> beginning, and several major distros worked on LSM so they could ship
>>> their own security modules.
>> Capabilities has always been a special case.
>> Until Android adopted SELinux the actual use of LSMs was rare.
> I don't think that is correct.  Fedora/RHEL were enabling SELinux by
> default since around 2004/2005 and for a while Fedora was tracking
> SELinux status as part of their "smolt" hardware profiling project and
> SELinux enablement was trending above 80% IIRC before they
> de-commissioned smolt. SuSE/SLES and Ubuntu were enabling AppArmor by
> default for quite some time too prior to SE Android.

POSIX ACLs have been enabled just as long. Their use is still
incredibly rare.

>   It is certainly
> true that Android's adoption of SELinux massively increased the size
> of the SELinux install base (and was the first to make SELinux usage
> mandatory, not just default-enabled) but I don't think it is accurate
> to say that LSM usage was rare prior to that.

That will depend on whether you consider presence to be usage.
That gets into the whole "transparent security" argument.
Sorry I brought this up. I don't mean to disrespect the achievement
of SELinux. My experience of the Orange Book and early Common
Criteria era, including the Unix to Linux transition, seems to
have differed somewhat from that others.