Changing the defaults for secondary modules (wrong defaults)

From: dwheelerat_private
Date: Fri Dec 20 2002 - 13:49:43 PST

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    Here's my promised second message.  When I created my patch,
    I realized that there's a minor problem with the automatic filling
    in of functions done by security_fixup_ops() (defined in dummy.c, and called
    by security.c).  The current fill-in approach presumes that any
    undefined functions should be set as though the module is a
    primary module (specifically, dummy's).
    
    However, a secondary module should have absolutely no effect unless
    it's defined by its security policy.
    That way, users can use the capability module, or a replacement for
    the capability module, or something entirely different.
    Otherwise, users get "stuck" and can't stack, say, owlsm with capability2.
    
    Currently, a secondary must always override the dummy functions that do
    anything: capget, capset_check, capable, netlink_send,
    netlink_recv, task_reparent_to_init, and ip_decode_options.
    These need to be overridden with "noop" operations, instead of what
    dummy does.
    
    It's not a great hardship to override 7 fuctions with a no-op,
    and then define the no-op, but it's unnecessary.
    Instead, security_fixup_ops() should fill in different
    values if the module is a secondary.  This involves a small amount
    of additional code, but it would make things much more likely to
    "just work" and it would make secondary-aware modules much simpler to write.
    
    For simple modules that especially important; half of my patch was
    to deal with the "wrong default" problem.
    If the defaults were "correct", making a module work as a secondary
    module is actually pretty simple!
    
    Comments?  Am I all wet?
    
    --- David
    
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