locking down a secure-file-area

[Stephen Smalley]

On Thu, 2005-06-16 at 17:09 -0400, Security News wrote:
> OK, what I'm trying to do now is to lock down a particular directory,
> so that only people in a certain role may use the files in that
> directory.  The best way I can see to do this is to have a user login
> and the "newrole" their way into the new secure-area domain.
> 
> Here's what I have done thus far...
> 1) chcon -t securefiles_t /home/testuser/securefiles
> 2) I edited the policy/users file to allow certain users into a
> "secureuser_r" role.
> 3) I edited policy/rbac to "allow user_r secureuser_r"
> I created a file called policy/domains/misc/securefiles.te with the following:
> 
> <start .te file>
> type secureuser_t, domain;
> type securefiles_t, file_type;
> 
> role secureuser_r types secureuser_t;
> allow secureuser_t securefiles_t:dir *;
> allow secureuser_t securefiles:file *;
> domain_auto_trans(user_t, newrole_exec_t, secureuser_t)
> role_tty_type_change(user, secureuser)
> allow newrole_t secureuser_t:process transition;

Use full_user_role(secureuser) to define your new role and domain.
Note that the domain_auto_trans rule above is wrong - you don't want
user_t to transition to your new user domain automatically upon running
newrole; you want it to transition to newrole_t as usual (and this will
be covered by full_user_role) and then have newrole explicitly
transition to the role specified by the user via the -r option.
You'll still need the securefiles_t type declaration and rules and the
role_tty_type_change() rule as well, but not the rest of the above.
Also, unless you truly want to allow all permissions, don't use *; use
one of the macros like create_file_perms and create_dir_perms (e.g. do
you really want to allow this domain to execute these files?  To relabel
them?  To mount on them?  To be entered by executing these files?).  

> </end .te file>
> 
> 
> I am able to comipile and load the policy, but when I login as
> testuser and attempt to "newrole -r secureuser_r -t secureuser_t" my
> terminal screen closes instantly.
> 
> My error log:
> avc: denied {transition} for pid=4044 exe=/usr/bin/newrole
> path=bin/bash  ... scontext=testuser:user_r:newrole_t
> tcontext=testuser:secureuser_r:secureuser_t 
> tclass=process

Looks like the newrole transition took precedence anyway.  This denial
is being caused by policy/constraints, because you are attempting to
change roles and the new domain is not marked with a 'userdomain'
attribute.  But this will be addressed automatically by using
full_user_role() above to define your user role and domain.

-- 
Stephen Smalley
National Security Agency