Re: [PATCH v3] lockdown,selinux: fix wrong subject in some SELinux lockdown checks

[Paul Moore]

On Sat, Jun 19, 2021 at 1:00 PM Thomas Gleixner <tglx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 16 2021 at 10:51, Ondrej Mosnacek wrote:
> > diff --git a/arch/x86/mm/testmmiotrace.c b/arch/x86/mm/testmmiotrace.c
> > index bda73cb7a044..c43a13241ae8 100644
> > --- a/arch/x86/mm/testmmiotrace.c
> > +++ b/arch/x86/mm/testmmiotrace.c
> > @@ -116,7 +116,7 @@ static void do_test_bulk_ioremapping(void)
> >  static int __init init(void)
> >  {
> >       unsigned long size = (read_far) ? (8 << 20) : (16 << 10);
> > -     int ret = security_locked_down(LOCKDOWN_MMIOTRACE);
> > +     int ret = security_locked_down(current_cred(), LOCKDOWN_MMIOTRACE);
>
> I have no real objection to those patches, but it strikes me odd that
> out of the 62 changed places 58 have 'current_cred()' and 4 have NULL as
> argument.
>
> I can't see why this would ever end up with anything else than
> current_cred() or NULL and NULL being the 'special' case. So why not
> having security_locked_down_no_cred() and make current_cred() implicit
> for security_locked_down() which avoids most of the churn and just makes
> the special cases special. I might be missing something though.

Unfortunately it is not uncommon for kernel subsystems to add, move,
or otherwise play around with LSM hooks without checking with the LSM
folks; generally this is okay, but there have been a few problems in
the past and I try to keep that in mind when we are introducing new
hooks or modifying existing ones.  If we have two LSM hooks for
roughly the same control point it has the potential to cause
confusion, e.g. do I use the "normal" or the "no_cred" version?  What
if I don't want to pass a credential, can I just use "no_cred"?  My
thinking with the single, always-pass-a-cred function is that callers
don't have to worry about choosing from multiple, similar hooks and
they know they need to pass a cred which hopefully gets them thinking
about what cred is appropriate.  It's not foolproof, but I believe the
single hook approach will be less prone to accidents ... or so I hope
:)

-- 
paul moore
www.paul-moore.com