Re: User namespaces and keys

From: Eric W. Biederman
Date: Wed Feb 23 2011 - 10:46:00 EST


David Howells <dhowells@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> Serge E. Hallyn <serge@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> > I guess we need to look at how to mix keys and namespaces again.
>>
>> From strictly kernel pov, at the moment, keys are strictly usable only
>> by the user in your own user namespace.
>
> I'm not sure that's currently completely true. Key quota maintenance is
> namespaced, and the key's owner UID/GID belong to that namespace, so that's
> okay, but:
>
> (*) key_task_permission() does not distinguish UIDs and GIDs from different
> namespaces.
>
> (*) A key can be referred to by its serial number, no matter whose namespace
> it is in, and will yield up its given UID/GID, even if these aren't
> actually meaningful in your namespace.
>
> This means request_key() can successfully upcall at the moment.
>
> I wonder if I should make the following changes:
>
> (1) If the key and the accessor are in different user namespaces, then skip
> the UID and GID comparisons in key_task_permission(). That means that to
> be able to access the key you'd have to possess the key and the key would
> have to grant you Possessor access, or the key would have to grant you
> Other access.
>
> (2) If the key and someone viewing the key description are in different
> namespaces, then indicate that the UID and the GID are -1, irrespective of
> the actual values.
>
> (3) When an upcall is attempting to instantiate a key, it is allowed to access
> the keys of requestor using the requestor's credentials (UID, GID, groups,
> security label). Ensure that this will be done in the requestor's user
> namespace.
>
> Nothing should need to be done here, since search_process_keyrings()
> switches to the requestor's creds.
>
> Oh, and are security labels user-namespaced?

Not at this time. The user namespace as currently merged is little more
than a place holder for a proper implementation. Serge is busily
fleshing out that proper implementation.

Until we reach the point where all checks that have historically been
"if (uid1 == uid2)" become "if ((uidns1 == uidns2) && (uid1 == uid2))"
there will be problems.

The security labels and probably lsm's in general need to be per user
namespace but we simply have not gotten that far. For the short term I
will be happy when we get a minimally usable user namespace.

Eric
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