Thread (82 messages) 82 messages, 7 authors, 2018-10-01

Re: [PATCH security-next v3 18/29] LSM: Introduce lsm.enable= and lsm.disable=

From: John Johansen <john.johansen@canonical.com>
Date: 2018-10-01 23:44:37
Also in: linux-arch, linux-doc, lkml

On 10/01/2018 04:30 PM, Kees Cook wrote:
On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 3:48 PM, John Johansen
[off-list ref] wrote:
quoted
On 10/01/2018 03:27 PM, Kees Cook wrote:
quoted
On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 2:46 PM, John Johansen
[off-list ref] wrote:
quoted
On 09/24/2018 05:18 PM, Kees Cook wrote:
quoted
This introduces the "lsm.enable=..." and "lsm.disable=..." boot parameters
which each can contain a comma-separated list of LSMs to enable or
disable, respectively. The string "all" matches all LSMs.

This has very similar functionality to the existing per-LSM enable
handling ("apparmor.enabled=...", etc), but provides a centralized
place to perform the changes. These parameters take precedent over any
LSM-specific boot parameters.

Disabling an LSM means it will not be considered when performing
initializations. Enabling an LSM means either undoing a previous
LSM-specific boot parameter disabling or a undoing a default-disabled
CONFIG setting.

For example: "lsm.disable=apparmor apparmor.enabled=1" will result in
AppArmor being disabled. "selinux.enabled=0 lsm.enable=selinux" will
result in SELinux being enabled.

Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <redacted>
I don't like this. It brings about conflicting kernel params that are
bound to confuse users. Its pretty easy for a user to understand that
when they specify a parameter manually at boot, that  it overrides the
build time default. But conflicting kernel parameters are a lot harder
to deal with.

I prefer a plain enabled= list being an override of the default build
time value. Where conflicts with LSM-specific configs always result in
the LSM being disabled with a complaint about the conflict.

Though I have yet to be convinced its worth the cost, I do recognize
it is sometimes convenient to disable a single LSM, instead of typing
in a whole list of what to enable. If we have to have conflicting
kernel parameters I would prefer that the conflict throw up a warning
and leaving the LSM with the conflicting config disabled.
Alright, let's drill down a bit more. I thought I had all the
requirements sorted out here. :)

AppArmor and SELinux are "special" here in that they have both:

- CONFIG for enable-ness
- boot param for enable-ness

Now, the way this worked in the past was that combined with
CONFIG_DEFAULT_SECURITY and the link-time ordering, this resulted in a
way to get the LSM enabled, skipped, etc. But it was highly CONFIG
dependent.

SELinux does:

#ifdef CONFIG_SECURITY_SELINUX_BOOTPARAM
int selinux_enabled = CONFIG_SECURITY_SELINUX_BOOTPARAM_VALUE;

static int __init selinux_enabled_setup(char *str)
{
        unsigned long enabled;
        if (!kstrtoul(str, 0, &enabled))
                selinux_enabled = enabled ? 1 : 0;
        return 1;
}
__setup("selinux=", selinux_enabled_setup);
#else
int selinux_enabled = 1;
#endif
...
        if (!security_module_enable("selinux")) {
                selinux_enabled = 0;
                return 0;
        }

        if (!selinux_enabled) {
                pr_info("SELinux:  Disabled at boot.\n");
                return 0;
        }


AppArmor does:

/* Boot time disable flag */
static bool apparmor_enabled = CONFIG_SECURITY_APPARMOR_BOOTPARAM_VALUE;
module_param_named(enabled, apparmor_enabled, bool, S_IRUGO);

static int __init apparmor_enabled_setup(char *str)
{
        unsigned long enabled;
        int error = kstrtoul(str, 0, &enabled);
        if (!error)
                apparmor_enabled = enabled ? 1 : 0;
        return 1;
}

__setup("apparmor=", apparmor_enabled_setup);
...
        if (!apparmor_enabled || !security_module_enable("apparmor")) {
                aa_info_message("AppArmor disabled by boot time parameter");
                apparmor_enabled = false;
                return 0;
        }


Smack and TOMOYO each do:

        if (!security_module_enable("smack"))
                return 0;

        if (!security_module_enable("tomoyo"))
                return 0;


Capability, Integrity, Yama, and LoadPin always run init. (This series
fixes LoadPin to separate enable vs enforce, so we can ignore its
"enable" setting, which isn't an "am I active?" boolean -- its init
was always run.) With the enable logic is lifted out of the LSMs, we
want to have "implicit enable" for 6 of 8 of the LSMs. (Which is why I
had originally suggested CONFIG_LSM_DISABLE, since the normal state is
enabled.) But given your feedback, I made this "implicit disable" and
added CONFIG_LSM_ENABLE instead. (For which "CONFIG_LSM_ENABLE=all"
gets the same results.)


I think, then, the first question (mainly for you and Paul) is:

Should we remove CONFIG_SECURITY_SELINUX_BOOTPARAM_VALUE and
CONFIG_SECURITY_APPARMOR_BOOTPARAM_VALUE in favor of only
CONFIG_LSM_ENABLE?
We can remove the Kconfig for the apparmor bootparam value. In fact I
will attach that patch below. I can't get rid of the parameter as it
is part of the userspace api. There are tools and applications
checking /sys/module/apparmor/parameters/enabled

but we can certainly default it to enabled and make it work only as a
runtime kernel parameter to disable apparmor which is how it has been
traditionally been used.
quoted
The answer will affect the next question: what should be done with the
boot parameters? AppArmor has two ways to change enablement:
apparmor=0/1 and apparmor.enabled=0/1. SELinux just has selinux=0/1.
Should those be removed in favor of "lsm.enable=..."? (And if they're
not removed, how do people imagine they should interact?)
I am not against removing the apparmor one, it does mean retraining
users but it is seldmon used so it may be worth dropping. If we keep
it, it should be a disable only flag that where the use of apparmor=0
or apparmor.enable=0 (same thing) means apparmor is disabled.
If we keep it, "apparmor=0 lsm_enable=apparmor" would mean it's
enabled. Is that okay?
ugh I would rather get rid of apparmor=0 or to emit a warning with apparmor
disabled, but if we have to live with it then yes I can live with last
option wins

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