Proposal: Improving SELinux <--> user interaction on Fedora - Kerneloops for SELinux

max maximilianbianco at gmail.com
Tue Jul 22 16:06:06 UTC 2008


Arthur Pemberton wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 9:15 AM, Gilboa Davara <gilboad at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, 2008-07-17 at 17:03 -0400, Casey Dahlin wrote:
>>> Ahmed Kamal wrote:
>>>> another idea, is when a denial occurs, and we get this nice balloon,
>>>> it would contain 2 buttons
>>>> - AutoFix: automatically attempts changing the offending file's
>>>> context, as per the recommended action
>>>>
>>> This is a sharp edge for users to cut themselves on. It would be nice if
>>> we would detect when the error was a result of inconsistencies though
>>> (such as the file label not matching policy).
>>>
>>> IMHO, we should be able to do the following:
>>>
>>> - We should have exempt, which ignores the denial for now. It also flags
>>> the issue upstream. Denial messages for the exempt process are then
>>> rerouted to a safe place.
>>> - Whenever policy-kit is updated, the exemptions are reevaluated and
>>> removed if they should be addressed.
>>> - We should come up with some secure way of quickly propagating
>>> information about known selinux issues, so that denial warnings can be
>>> suppressed until a fix is available
>>> - There should be more graphical tools for manipulating policy itself.
>>> The user should be able to see a list of local policy exceptions they
>>> have made.
>>>
>>> --CJD
>>>
>> Couldn't exempt be (ab)used to an attacker if/when it becomes common
>> knowledge?
> 
> Through social engineering, yes. That's why it's a terrible solution,
> but I'm not sure there is any good way around it.
> 
Don't implement it or if you do make that nonsense optional and not the 
default. Everyone wants things to be simpler, there is no easy way out. 
System security is not something simple.  Developer's continue to 
indulge in running permissive or turning SELinux off entirely, all this 
accomplishes is to make it take longer to establish good policy, SELinux 
isn't going anywhere. People need to get used to it. There are a number 
of tools available to troubleshoot any issue but nobody seems to want to 
use any of them. The kerneloops for SELinux is a good idea but it isn't 
going to instantly solve anyone's problems. All those reports still have 
to sorted and reviewed to determine how to fix policy to suit the 
majority of users, it still may take weeks to sort it all out. People 
often are not even trying the fixes suggested by SETroubleshoot. 
SETroubleshoot does a good job of suggesting fixes. Audit2allow is great 
for this until upstream can figure out how to work it out. All this talk 
of allow/deny buttons is absolute insanity and it will ruin one of the 
few useful security tools that exist.

-Max

-- 
Fortune favors the BOLD




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