Re: [PATCH AUTOSEL 5.10 021/101] fscrypt: allow 256-bit master keys with AES-256-XTS

[Sasha Levin]

On Mon, Nov 08, 2021 at 05:48:40PM -0800, Eric Biggers wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 08, 2021 at 12:47:11PM -0500, Sasha Levin wrote:
> > From: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@xxxxxxxxxx>
> >
> > [ Upstream commit 7f595d6a6cdc336834552069a2e0a4f6d4756ddf ]
> >
> > fscrypt currently requires a 512-bit master key when AES-256-XTS is
> > used, since AES-256-XTS keys are 512-bit and fscrypt requires that the
> > master key be at least as long any key that will be derived from it.
> >
> > However, this is overly strict because AES-256-XTS doesn't actually have
> > a 512-bit security strength, but rather 256-bit.  The fact that XTS
> > takes twice the expected key size is a quirk of the XTS mode.  It is
> > sufficient to use 256 bits of entropy for AES-256-XTS, provided that it
> > is first properly expanded into a 512-bit key, which HKDF-SHA512 does.
> >
> > Therefore, relax the check of the master key size to use the security
> > strength of the derived key rather than the size of the derived key
> > (except for v1 encryption policies, which don't use HKDF).
> >
> > Besides making things more flexible for userspace, this is needed in
> > order for the use of a KDF which only takes a 256-bit key to be
> > introduced into the fscrypt key hierarchy.  This will happen with
> > hardware-wrapped keys support, as all known hardware which supports that
> > feature uses an SP800-108 KDF using AES-256-CMAC, so the wrapped keys
> > are wrapped 256-bit AES keys.  Moreover, there is interest in fscrypt
> > supporting the same type of AES-256-CMAC based KDF in software as an
> > alternative to HKDF-SHA512.  There is no security problem with such
> > features, so fix the key length check to work properly with them.
> >
> > Reviewed-by: Paul Crowley <paulcrowley@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20210921030303.5598-1-ebiggers@xxxxxxxxxx
> > Signed-off-by: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@xxxxxxxxxx>
>
> I don't expect any problem with backporting this, but I don't see how this
> follows the stable kernel rules (Documentation/process/stable-kernel-rules.rst).
> I don't see what distinguishes this patch from ones that don't get picked up by
> AUTOSEL; it seems pretty arbitrary to me.

It is, to some extent. My understanding was that this is a minor fix to
make something that should have worked, work.

--
Thanks,
Sasha