Paul Moore [off-list ref] writes:

On Wed, Jul 17, 2019 at 8:52 PM Richard Guy Briggs [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

On 2019-07-16 19:30, Paul Moore wrote:

...

quoted

quoted

We can trust capable(CAP_AUDIT_CONTROL) for enforcing audit container
ID policy, we can not trust ns_capable(CAP_AUDIT_CONTROL).

Ok.  So does a process in a non-init user namespace have two (or more)
sets of capabilities stored in creds, one in the init_user_ns, and one
in current_user_ns?  Or does it get stripped of all its capabilities in
init_user_ns once it has its own set in current_user_ns?  If the former,
then we can use capable().  If the latter, we need another mechanism, as
you have suggested might be needed.

Unfortunately I think the problem is that ultimately we need to allow
any container orchestrator that has been given privileges to manage
the audit container ID to also grant that privilege to any of the
child process/containers it manages.  I don't believe we can do that
with capabilities based on the code I've looked at, and the
discussions I've had, but if you find a way I would leave to hear it.

quoted

If some random unprivileged user wants to fire up a container
orchestrator/engine in his own user namespace, then audit needs to be
namespaced.  Can we safely discard this scenario for now?

I think the only time we want to allow a container orchestrator to
manage the audit container ID is if it has been granted that privilege
by someone who has that privilege already.  In the zero-container, or
single-level of containers, case this is relatively easy, and we can
accomplish it using CAP_AUDIT_CONTROL as the privilege.  If we start
nesting container orchestrators it becomes more complicated as we need
to be able to support granting and inheriting this privilege in a
manner; this is why I suggested a new mechanism *may* be necessary.

Let me segway a bit and see if I can get this conversation out of the
rut it seems to have drifted into.

Unprivileged containers and nested containers exist today and are going
to become increasingly common.  Let that be a given.

As I recall the interesting thing for audit to log is actions by
privileged processes.  Audit can log more but generally configuring
logging by of the actions of unprivileged users is effectively a self
DOS.

So I think the initial implementation can safely ignore actions of
nested containers and unprivileged containers because you don't care
about their actions. 

If we start allow running audit in a container then we need to deal with
all of the nesting issues but until then I don't think you folks care.

Or am I wrong.  Do the requirements for securely auditing things from
the kernel care about the actions of unprivileged users?

Eric