Re: [PATCH 0/2] sysctl: allow CLONE_NEWUSER to be disabled

[Andy Lutomirski]

On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 7:02 PM, Eric W. Biederman
<ebiederm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
>> There continues to be unexpected side-effects and security exposures
>> via CLONE_NEWUSER. For many end-users running distro kernels with
>> CONFIG_USER_NS enabled, there is no way to disable this feature when
>> desired. As such, this creates a sysctl to restrict CLONE_NEWUSER so
>> admins not running containers or Chrome can avoid the risks of this
>> feature.
>
> I don't actually think there do continue to be unexpected side-effects
> and security exposures with CLONE_NEWUSER.  It takes a while for all of
> the fixes to trickle out to distros.  At most what I have seen recently
> are problems with other kernel interfaces being amplified with user
> namespaces.  AKA the current mess with devpts, and the unexpected
> issues with bind mounts in mount namespaces.
>

>
> So to keep this productive.  Please tell me about the threat model
> you envision, and how you envision knobs in the kernel being used to
> counter those threats.

I consider the ability to use CLONE_NEWUSER to acquire CAP_NET_ADMIN
over /any/ network namespace and to thus access the network
configuration API to be a huge risk.  For example, unprivileged users
can program iptables.  I'll eat my hat if there are no privilege
escalations in there.  (They can't request module loading, but still.)

--Andy