Message-ID: <28f3ca55-29ea-4582-655d-2769881127ad@schaufler-ca.com>
Date:   Tue, 30 May 2023 15:15:01 -0700
From:   Casey Schaufler <casey@...aufler-ca.com>
To:     Christian Brauner <brauner@...nel.org>
Cc:     Christoph Hellwig <hch@....de>,
        Mickaël Salaün <mic@...ikod.net>,
        Xiu Jianfeng <xiujianfeng@...wei.com>,
        gregkh@...uxfoundation.org, rafael@...nel.org,
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        sfrench@...ba.org, senozhatsky@...omium.org, tom@...pey.com,
        chuck.lever@...cle.com, jlayton@...nel.org, miklos@...redi.hu,
        paul@...l-moore.com, jmorris@...ei.org, serge@...lyn.com,
        stephen.smalley.work@...il.com, eparis@...isplace.org,
        dchinner@...hat.com, john.johansen@...onical.com,
        mcgrof@...nel.org, mortonm@...omium.org, fred@...udflare.com,
        mpe@...erman.id.au, nathanl@...ux.ibm.com, gnoack3000@...il.com,
        roberto.sassu@...wei.com, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org, linux-cachefs@...hat.com,
        ecryptfs@...r.kernel.org, linux-cifs@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-nfs@...r.kernel.org, linux-unionfs@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-security-module@...r.kernel.org, selinux@...r.kernel.org,
        wangweiyang2@...wei.com, Casey Schaufler <casey@...aufler-ca.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH -next 0/2] lsm: Change inode_setattr() to take struct

On 5/30/2023 9:01 AM, Christian Brauner wrote:
> On Tue, May 30, 2023 at 07:55:17AM -0700, Casey Schaufler wrote:
>> On 5/30/2023 7:28 AM, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
>>> On Tue, May 30, 2023 at 03:58:35PM +0200, Christian Brauner wrote:
>>>> The main concern which was expressed on other patchsets before is that
>>>> modifying inode operations to take struct path is not the way to go.
>>>> Passing struct path into individual filesystems is a clear layering
>>>> violation for most inode operations, sometimes downright not feasible,
>>>> and in general exposing struct vfsmount to filesystems is a hard no. At
>>>> least as far as I'm concerned.
>>> Agreed.  Passing struct path into random places is not how the VFS works.
>>>
>>>> So the best way to achieve the landlock goal might be to add new hooks
>>> What is "the landlock goal", and why does it matter?
>>>
>>>> or not. And we keep adding new LSMs without deprecating older ones (A
>>>> problem we also face in the fs layer.) and then they sit around but
>>>> still need to be taken into account when doing changes.
>>> Yes, I'm really worried about th amount of LSMs we have, and the weird
>>> things they do.
>> Which LSM(s) do you think ought to be deprecated? I only see one that I
> I don't have a good insight into what LSMs are actively used or are
> effectively unused but I would be curious to hear what LSMs are
> considered actively used/maintained from the LSM maintainer's
> perspective.

I'm not the LSM maintainer, but I've been working on the infrastructure
for quite some time. All the existing LSMs save one can readily be associated
with active systems, and the one that isn't is actively maintained. We have
not gotten into the habit of accepting LSMs upstream that don't have a real
world use.

>> might consider a candidate. As for weird behavior, that's what LSMs are
>> for, and the really weird ones proposed (e.g. pathname character set limitations)
> If this is effectively saying that LSMs are licensed to step outside the
> rules of the subsystem they're a guest in then it seems unlikely
> subsystems will be very excited to let new LSM changes go in important
> codepaths going forward. In fact this seems like a good argument against
> it.

This is an artifact of Linus' decision that security models should be
supported as add-on modules. On the one hand, all that a subsystem maintainer
needs to know about a security feature is what it needs in the way of hooks.
On the other hand, the subsystem maintainer loses control over what kinds of
things the security feature does with the available information. It's a
tension that we've had to deal with since the Orange Book days of the late
1980's. The deal has always been:

	You can have your security feature if:
	1. If I turn it off it has no performance impact
	2. I don't have to do anything to maintain it
	3. It doesn't interfere with any other system behavior
	4. You'll leave me alone

As a security developer from way back I would be delighted if maintainers of
other subsystems took an active interest in some of what we've been trying
to accomplish in the security space. If the VFS maintainers would like to
see the LSM interfaces for file systems changed I, for one, would like very
much to hear about what they'd prefer. 

We do a lot of crazy things to avoid interfering with the subsystems we
interact with. A closer developer relationship would be most welcome, so
long as it helps us achieve or goals. We get a lot of complaints about how
LSM feature perform, but no one wants to hear that a good deal of that comes
about because of what has to be done in support of 1, 2 and 3 above. Sometimes
we do stoopid things, but usually it's to avoid changes "outside our swim lane".

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