BPF LSM and fexit [was: [PATCH bpf-next v3 04/10] bpf: lsm: Add mutable hooks list for the BPF LSM]

[Jann Horn]

On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 6:58 PM Alexei Starovoitov
<alexei.starovoitov at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 01:43:34PM +0100, KP Singh wrote:
[...]
> > * When using the semantic provided by fexit, the BPF LSM program will
> >   always be executed and will be able to override / clobber the
> >   decision of LSMs which appear before it in the ordered list. This
> >   semantic is very different from what we currently have (i.e. the BPF
> >   LSM hook is only called if all the other LSMs allow the action) and
> >   seems to be bypassing the LSM framework.
>
> It that's a concern it's trivial to add 'if (RC == 0)' check to fexit
> trampoline generator specific to lsm progs.
[...]
> Using fexit mechanism and bpf_sk_storage generalization is
> all that is needed. None of it should touch security/*.

If I understand your suggestion correctly, that seems like a terrible
idea to me from the perspective of inspectability and debuggability.
If at runtime, a function can branch off elsewhere to modify its
decision, I want to see that in the source code. If someone e.g.
changes the parameters or the locking rules around a security hook,
how are they supposed to understand the implications if that happens
through some magic fexit trampoline that is injected at runtime?