Re: GACI item list - to give some items for discussion

From: Crispin Cowan (crispinat_private)
Date: Mon Apr 16 2001 - 15:46:48 PDT

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    Casey Schaufler wrote:
    
    > Crispin Cowan wrote:
    > > "allowed_to_open()" already exists:  it is called "access(2)".  Say "man 2
    > > access" for details.
    > access(2) is a queer duck. It uses regular path lookup
    > to the final component, but the realuid for the object itself.
    > Further, it does not deal with conditions which exist
    > today, such as read-only file systems and immutable bits.
    
    How unfortunate.
    
    However, if we provide a hook for LSM modules to mediate the access(2) syscall,
    then we enable security modules to do a better job of implementing access(2) if
    they want to.  That may break legacy code that depends on the existing (broken)
    semantics of access(2), but that's a decision that module designers get to make
    for themselves.
    
    
    > A useful function, first proposed in literature by
    > W. Olin Sibert, would be one which you pass a bunch
    > of security attributes for the subject and a set for
    > the object along with a proposed access and you get
    > back a best guess answer. It could be implemented
    > strictly in userland for many policies. On the other
    > hand, I've never seens a reasonable specification
    > for the call.
    
    I don't see a problem with LSM modules providing new system calls (or ioctls,
    or sysctls, or whatever) to provide this kind of functionality.  It's yet
    another module feature, not a feature of LSM per se.
    
    Crispin
    
    --
    Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
    Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc. http://wirex.com
    Security Hardened Linux Distribution:       http://immunix.org
    
    
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