[RFC] IMA Log Snapshotting Design Proposal

[Tushar Sugandhi]

hi James,
Thanks for addressing Stefan's concerns.

On 8/8/23 05:35, James Bottomley wrote:
> On Mon, 2023-08-07 at 18:49 -0400, Stefan Berger wrote:
>>
>> On 8/1/23 17:21, James Bottomley wrote:
>>> On Tue, 2023-08-01 at 12:12 -0700, Sush Shringarputale wrote:
>>> [...]
>>>> Truncating IMA log to reclaim memory is not feasible, since it
>>>> makes the log go out of sync with the TPM PCR quote making remote
>>>> attestation fail.
>>> This assumption isn't entirely true.  It's perfectly possible to
>>> shard an IMA log using two TPM2_Quote's for the beginning and end
>>> PCR values to validate the shard.  The IMA log could be truncated
>>> in the same way (replace the removed part of the log with a
>>> TPM2_Quote and AK, so the log still validates from the beginning
>>> quote to the end).
>>>
>>> If you use a TPM2_Quote mechanism to save the log, all you need to
>>> do is have the kernel generate the quote with an internal AK.  You
>>> can keep a record of the quote and the AK at the beginning of the
>>> truncated kernel log.  If the truncated entries are saved in a file
>>> shard it
>> The truncation seems dangerous to me. Maybe not all the scenarios
>> with an attestation client (client = reading logs and quoting) are
>> possible then anymore, such as starting an attestation client only
>> after truncation but a verifier must have witnessed the system's PCRs
>> and log state before the truncation occurred.
> That's not exactly correct.  Nothing needs to have "witnessed" the
> starting PCR value because the quote vouches for it (and can vouch for
> it after the fact).  The only thing you need to verify the quote is the
> attestation key and the only thing you need to do to trust the
> attestation key is ensure it was TPM created.  All of that can be
> verified after the fact as well.  The only thing that can be done to
> disrupt this is to destroy the TPM (or re-own it).
Agreed.
>
> Remember the assumption is you *also* have the removed log shard to
> present.  From that the PCR state of the starting quote can be
> calculated and checked for matching the quote.  If you lose that, it's
> equivalent to the log being tampered with and all bets are off.  The
> assumption is that because of the impossibility of engineering TPM
> extensions, it should be impossible to come up with a fake log that
> produces the PCRs of the real one.  If that's violated, then IMA itself
> becomes useless.
Totally agreed. I believe our proposal is consistent with your
comments. Please let us know if you see any inconsistencies or technical
blockers.

~Tushar

>
> James