Re: [PATCH 2/2] RFC: selinux: sysctl: fix selinux labeling brokenby last patch

From: Stephen Smalley
Date: Mon Jan 31 2011 - 09:21:46 EST


On Mon, 2011-01-31 at 16:14 +0200, Lucian Adrian Grijincu wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 3:59 PM, Stephen Smalley <sds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > - Don't remove the IS_PRIVATE() test from inode_has_perm(), as other
> > inodes beyond just the /proc/sys ones are marked with that flag
> > (original usage was for reiserfs xattr inodes).
>
>
> Are you sure? I believe it was added here:
>
> [PATCH] selinux: enhance selinux to always ignore private inodes
>
> Hmmm...turns out to not be quite enough, as the /proc/sys inodes
> aren't truly
> private to the fs, so we can run into them in a variety of security hooks
> beyond just the inode hooks, such as security_file_permission (when reading
> and writing them via the vfs helpers), security_sb_mount (when
> mounting other
> filesystems on directories in proc like binfmt_misc), and deeper within the
> security module itself (as in flush_unauthorized_files upon
> inheritance across
> execve). So I think we have to add an IS_PRIVATE() guard within SELinux, as
> below. Note however that the use of the private flag here could
> be confusing,
> as these inodes are _not_ private to the fs, are exposed to userspace, and
> security modules must implement the sysctl hook to get any access
> control over
> them.
>
>
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.security.selinux/341/focus=519
>
>
> In my patch I don't care about IS_PRIVATE, because I don't mark proc
> inodes as PRIVATE any more.
>
>
> This patch added S_ISPRIVATE to proc inodes:
> [PATCH] sysctl: hide the sysctl proc inodes from selinux
> 86a71dbd3e81e8870d0f0e56b87875f57e58222b
>
> This one added the IS_PRIVATE check:
> [PATCH] selinux: enhance selinux to always ignore private inodes
> bbaca6c2e7ef0f663bc31be4dad7cf530f6c4962
>
>
> I'll remove the check from my patch if you say it's used in other
> places too, but the original usage does not seem to be "for reiserfs
> xattr inodes".

Ok, my mistake - you can leave that part alone. The original usage of
the S_PRIVATE flag was for reiserfs xattr inodes, but it appears that
you are correct that we don't need the IS_PRIVATE() guard within the
selinux code for that use case.

--
Stephen Smalley
National Security Agency

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