Re: [PATCH v10 4/5] overlayfs: internal getxattr operations without sepolicy checking

From: Amir Goldstein
Date: Thu Jul 25 2019 - 14:07:52 EST


On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 5:37 PM Mark Salyzyn <salyzyn@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the review.
>
> On 7/25/19 4:00 AM, Amir Goldstein wrote:
> > On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 10:57 PM Mark Salyzyn <salyzyn@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> Check impure, opaque, origin & meta xattr with no sepolicy audit
> >> (using __vfs_getxattr) since these operations are internal to
> >> overlayfs operations and do not disclose any data. This became
> >> an issue for credential override off since sys_admin would have
> >> been required by the caller; whereas would have been inherently
> >> present for the creator since it performed the mount.
> >>
> >> This is a change in operations since we do not check in the new
> >> ovl_vfs_getxattr function if the credential override is off or
> >> not. Reasoning is that the sepolicy check is unnecessary overhead,
> >> especially since the check can be expensive.
> > I don't know that this reasoning suffice to skip the sepolicy checks
> > for overlayfs private xattrs.
> > Can't sepolicy be defined to allow get access to trusted.overlay.*?
>
> Because for override credentials off, _everyone_ would need it (at least
> on Android, the sole user AFAIK, and only on userdebug builds, not user
> builds), and if everyone is special, and possibly including the random
> applications we add from the play store, then no one is ...
>

OK. I am convinced.

One weak argument in favor of the patch:
ecryptfs also uses __vfs_getxattr for private xattrs.

Thanks,
Amir.