[RFC PATCH 2/2] selinux: fall back to ref-walk upon LSM_AUDIT_DATA_DENTRY too

Paul Moore paul at paul-moore.com
Fri Nov 22 14:49:21 UTC 2019


On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 8:37 AM Stephen Smalley <sds at tycho.nsa.gov> wrote:
> On 11/21/19 7:30 PM, Paul Moore wrote:
> > On Thu, Nov 21, 2019 at 7:12 PM Paul Moore <paul at paul-moore.com> wrote:
> >> On Thu, Nov 21, 2019 at 9:52 AM Stephen Smalley <sds at tycho.nsa.gov> wrote:
> >>> commit bda0be7ad994 ("security: make inode_follow_link RCU-walk aware")
> >>> passed down the rcu flag to the SELinux AVC, but failed to adjust the
> >>> test in slow_avc_audit() to also return -ECHILD on LSM_AUDIT_DATA_DENTRY.
> >>> Previously, we only returned -ECHILD if generating an audit record with
> >>> LSM_AUDIT_DATA_INODE since this was only relevant from inode_permission.
> >>> Return -ECHILD on either LSM_AUDIT_DATA_INODE or LSM_AUDIT_DATA_DENTRY.
> >>> LSM_AUDIT_DATA_INODE only requires this handling due to the fact
> >>> that dump_common_audit_data() calls d_find_alias() and collects the
> >>> dname from the result if any.
> >>> Other cases that might require similar treatment in the future are
> >>> LSM_AUDIT_DATA_PATH and LSM_AUDIT_DATA_FILE if any hook that takes
> >>> a path or file is called under RCU-walk.
> >>>
> >>> Fixes: bda0be7ad994 ("security: make inode_follow_link RCU-walk aware")
> >>> Signed-off-by: Stephen Smalley <sds at tycho.nsa.gov>
> >>> ---
> >>>   security/selinux/avc.c | 3 ++-
> >>>   1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> >>>
> >>> diff --git a/security/selinux/avc.c b/security/selinux/avc.c
> >>> index 74c43ebe34bb..f1fa1072230c 100644
> >>> --- a/security/selinux/avc.c
> >>> +++ b/security/selinux/avc.c
> >>> @@ -779,7 +779,8 @@ noinline int slow_avc_audit(struct selinux_state *state,
> >>>           * during retry. However this is logically just as if the operation
> >>>           * happened a little later.
> >>>           */
> >>> -       if ((a->type == LSM_AUDIT_DATA_INODE) &&
> >>> +       if ((a->type == LSM_AUDIT_DATA_INODE ||
> >>> +            a->type == LSM_AUDIT_DATA_DENTRY) &&
> >>>              (flags & MAY_NOT_BLOCK))
> >>>                  return -ECHILD;
> >
> > With LSM_AUDIT_DATA_INODE we eventually end up calling d_find_alias()
> > in dump_common_audit_data() which could block, which is bad, that I
> > understand.  However, looking at LSM_AUDIT_DATA_DENTRY I'm less clear
> > on why that is bad?  It makes a few audit_log*() calls and one call to
> > d_backing_inode() which is non-blocking and trivial.
> >
> > What am I missing?
>
> For those who haven't, you may wish to also read the earlier thread here
> that led to this one:
> https://lore.kernel.org/selinux/20191119184057.14961-1-will@kernel.org/T/#t
>
> AFAIK, neither the LSM_AUDIT_DATA_INODE nor the LSM_AUDIT_DATA_DENTRY
> case truly block (d_find_alias does not block AFAICT, nor should
> audit_log* as long as we use audit_log_start with GFP_ATOMIC or
> GFP_NOWAIT).

Yes, the audit_log*() functions should be safe, if not I would
consider that a bug; I thought d_find_alias() might block, but it's
very likely I'm wrong in that regard.

> My impression from the comment in slow_avc_audit() is that
> the issue is not really about blocking but rather about the inability to
> safely dereference the dentry->d_name during RCU walk, which is
> something that can occur under LSM_AUDIT_DATA_INODE or _DENTRY (or _PATH
> or _FILE, but neither of the latter two are currently used from the two
> hooks that are called during RCU walk, inode_permission and
> inode_follow_link).  Originally _PATH, _DENTRY, and _INODE were all
> under a single _FS type and the original test in slow_avc_audit() was
> against LSM_AUDIT_DATA_FS before the split.

Thanks, I think that is the part I was missing.  I was focused too
much on the VFS stuff that I didn't pay enough attention to
slow_avc_audit().

If that is the case, the comment and code in dentry_cmp() would seem
to indicate that it would be safe to fetch the dentry name string as
long as we use READ_ONCE().  The length field in the qstr might be
off, but the audit_log_untrustedstring() function doesn't use the
qstr's length information.  I suppose if we don't mind the extra
spinlock we could use take_dentry_name_snapshot(); that should be safe
and we are already in the "slow" path.  I didn't check the _PATH or
_FILE cases.

Once again, let me know if I'm missing something.

As an aside, if we somehow can guarantee (e.g. via a name_snapshot)
that qstr length information is valid, we might want to consider
moving from audit_log_unstrustedstring() to
audit_log_n_untrustedstring() to save us a call to strlen().

> >> Added the LSM list as I'm beginning to wonder if we should push this
> >> logic down into common_lsm_audit(), this problem around blocking
> >> shouldn't be SELinux specific.
>
> That would require passing down the MAY_NOT_BLOCK flag or a rcu bool to
> common_lsm_audit() just so that it could immediately return if that is
> set and a->type is _INODE or _DENTRY (or _PATH or _FILE).  And the
> individual security module still needs to have its own handling of
> MAY_NOT_BLOCK/rcu for its own processing, so it won't free the security
> module authors from thinking about it.

Looking at the current SELinux code, all we do is bail out early with
-ECHILD.  If we didn't have that check it looks like the only impact
would be some extra assignments into a struct living on the stack and
a call into common_lsm_audit().  That doesn't seem terrible for a slow
path, especially if it pushes this code into a LSM common function.

> >> For the LSM folks just joining, the full patchset can be found here:
> >> * https://lore.kernel.org/selinux/20191121145245.8637-1-sds@tycho.nsa.gov/T/#t

-- 
paul moore
www.paul-moore.com



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