Re: State of Audit Proposal ?

From: Crispin Cowan (crispinat_private)
Date: Mon Jul 23 2001 - 12:29:10 PDT

  • Next message: David Wagner: "Re: linux-security-module digest, Vol 1 #175 - 9 msgs"

    Seth Arnold wrote:
    
    > On Mon, Jul 23, 2001 at 12:05:12PM -0700, KRAMER,STEVEN (HP-USA,ex1) wrote:
    > > Are we to use the Linux man pages as a functional spec for the interfaces
    > > that LSM must continue to respect?
    >
    > If this were *BSD, where the manpages are kept reliably up-to-date, I'd
    > unhesitatingly say Yes. However, given that some of these manpages
    > haven't been touched since 1994 or earlier, perhaps there is some other
    > source that we shold be using instead?
    
    I'm still catching up on mail, and have to hit the road soon, so a full, more
    coherent response to Steve Kramer's post will be forth coming.
    
    In the mean time, IMHO LSM should not impose a policy on what gets returned.
    It should be the default case that the dummy LSM module returns the same codes
    that Linux does now.  It should be easy for modules to continue returning the
    standard Linux codes, to preserve compatibility.  But it should also be
    possible for a module to set its own policy, and return any code it wants.
    
    Now, with respect to the DAC/MAC sequence order:  various parties want
    MAC checked first, so that there is not a covert channel via the different
    MAC/DAC error codes returned.  I submit that the existance of this covert
    channel is *created* by modules that return non-standard codes.  To close the
    covert channel, stick to the standard codes.
    
    Comments?  (I know, asking for comments is redundant :-)
    
    Crispin
    
    --
    Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
    Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc. http://wirex.com
    Security Hardened Linux Distribution:       http://immunix.org
    Available for purchase: http://wirex.com/Products/Immunix/purchase.html
    
    
    
    
    _______________________________________________
    linux-security-module mailing list
    linux-security-moduleat_private
    http://mail.wirex.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-security-module
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon Jul 23 2001 - 12:30:31 PDT