[redhat-lspp] LSPP Development Telecon 01/29/2007 Minutes

Ted X Toth txtoth at gmail.com
Thu Feb 1 17:25:28 UTC 2007


I think there was a discussion about naming of polyinstantiated 
directories that didn't make it into the notes. I don't remember all of 
the details of that discussion but I have submitted a pam_namespace 
patch and I'm just curious as to whether some version of it is going to 
make it into  RHEL5?

Ted
 
Loulwa Salem wrote:
> I think I confused voices in these notes, so feel free to correct me 
> if I attributed something to you that you didn't say.
>
> 01/29/2007 lspp Meeting Minutes:
> ===============================
>   Attendees
>
>   George Wilson (IBM) - GW
>   Lawrence Wilson (IBM) - LW
>   Kris Wilson (IBM) - KEW
>   Loulwa Salem (IBM) - LS
>   Michael Thompson (IBM) - MT
>   Joy Latten (IBM) - JL
>   Kylene J Hall (IBM) - KH
>   Irina Boverman (Red Hat) - IB
>   Steve Grubb (Red Hat) - SG
>   Dan Walsh (Red Hat) - DW
>   James Antill (Red Hat) - JA
>   Lisa Smith (HP) - LMS
>   Linda Knippers (HP) - LK
>   Matt Anderson (HP) - MA
>   Paul Moore (HP) - PM
>   Klaus Weidner (Atsec) - KW
>   Chad Hanson (TCS) - CH
>   Joe Nall - JN
>   Ted Toth - TT
>
> Tentative Agenda:
>
> Kernel / Beta / rawhide update
> ===============================
>     GW: Thank you Paul for the loopback fix patch
>     PM: Was joy gonna do stress testing on that. I want to stress it 
> is a proof
>     of concept patch so probably there is stuff missing. I posted that to
>     spur some discussion. It won't surprise me if it breaks once you test
>     with it
>     JL: I am hoping for good results
>     PM: I noticed other issues other than racoon. The SA in phase two, 
> there is
>     no directionality since src and dst address are the same, it is 
> unusual
>     so I don't know the ramifications of that.
>     JL: I looked at your code and it is the same places I was looking 
> at. when I
>     was playing with manual stuff, I only needed one SA and it didn't 
> need
>     direction. I had 1 SA and it worked both ways. so i think it's 
> going to
>     be ok
>     PM: only thing that concerns me is sequence number and window. it is
>     loopback so you are guaranteed delivery
>     JL: I'll look at seq number. To be honest, I'm thinking who cares 
> about seq
>     number on loopback. but I'll look. I think seq number was to make 
> sure
>     we are not forging packets
>     PM: if there are lots of senders and receivers, what happens in 
> that window
>     will we have packet loss
>     JL: I'll look at that. To be honest I'm not sure we need to be 
> concerned. I
>     think seq number is optional sometimes that's why I'm saying it might
>     not matter. So let's just make sure
>     PM: Ok thank you
>     GW: that's extremely good for everybody .thanks Paul. How is 
> current kernel
>     looking
>     LS: it's good I'm using it. I have not seen any problems so far
>     GW: how is networking
>     JL: yes, it's looking good for me too
>     GW: with current policy and 18 kickstart, if I applied updated 
> packages
>     during post install phase system rebooted instead of panic-ing, so 
> it's
>     good. Now I don't get console login prompt. I'll look at that more. I
>     don't see AVC either. anyone else not seen console prompt?
>     LK: I've seen that problem on ia64 on first boot. just on the console
>     PM: I think I've seen it as well
>     DW: is there a getty for that
>     GW: there is a getty on console as far as I can tell. I'll look 
> into it
>     more.
>     DW: 2 things to check, check the getty and check the device is 
> labeled
>     correctly.
>     GW: good point since it is a hvc0
>     DW: it might be problem ...
>     GW: I'll look into that since this is a virtual console
>     LK: if you reboot system, it'll be fine .. that's why it's weird. 
> I went to
>     single user mode and it came back
>     DW: the console came back
>     LK: yes, also even though you don't get prompt, I can still log in 
> to the
>     system
>     JA: when this happens is it running first boot graphical?
>     GW: I don't think so. is it even running on first boot?
>     JA: depends on your kickstart
>     MA: if it is a java console ...
>     KW: I've run it on VM ware and I don't see that, so I don't think 
> it is
>     related to that.
>     LK: I'll try to reproduce
>     GW: I tried to look at AVC . on first boot you can't log in as admin
>     anywhere. so it becomes alot more of pain. but we are making 
> progress we
>     can reboot without panic-ing. Any other issues?
>
> SELinux base and MLS policy update
> ==================================
>     GW: Any policy issues
>     DW: we have to find out why some of you are not able to ssh as 
> some roles
>     KW: seems to be related to translation, if I comment that out it 
> works.
>     what's happening is that it has separate categories for A and B 
> and it
>     combines them. it doesn't like that sometimes
>     DW: you added that to bugzilla? cause I'll look at it
>     KW: I didn't see the bugzilla, I added that to the mailing list
>     MA: there were other categories that worked .. weren't those 
> merged together
>     KW: it wasn't doing that with some others
>     DW: if I have two categories defined it translates the entire string
>     KW: I think it would make sense to give translation to each label. 
> if it is
>     supposed to do that then it should work
>     DW: you still need to do it for each sensitivity, which is more 
> than desired
>     KW: people at lower level don't need to see higher levels. It gets
>     translated, but other libraries don't agree on syntax
>     LK: can someone log in with raw context? should they be able to
>     KW: translation should be at user interface level. I am slightly 
> surprised,
>     it is using sometimes the translated and sometimes the raw context
>     DW: I'll look into it now that I have more info
>     KW: mostly it is related to specific ones.
>     DW: library might be broken
>     KW: might be too late to change that. I feel more comfortable if 
> tools use
>     the translated level all the time
>     DW: everything should be translated to raw
>     KW: be careful when you are testing that because successful and 
> unsuccessful
>     ssh attempt look ok
>     GW: so you are advocating not being able to use translation on login
>     KW: should be a convenience but not affect security
>     MT: what's the fallout
>     KW: ...
>     DW: maybe ssh is broken, I'll figure out what's going on
>     MT: just for my info. going forward there was talk about defining
>     categories, individual components but not entire context. Is that 
> still
>     the case?
>     CH: that would be wonderful.
>     MT: the permutations get big, so I see that as being useful
>     DW: is A,B the same as B,A
>     MT: should be sanitized. categories are independent listing
>     CH: raw context has to be same
>     PM: question are the compartments related to each other if c1 c2 
> c7 are
>     set, by convention they will display to user in order
>     DW: access decision is fine
>     KW: currently it allows us to give range of categories. if someone 
> comes
>     along and renumbers things, a tool might include things that you 
> might
>     not have expected. admin shouldn't use category ranges
>     DW: I don't think you can use ranges. only reason I say this is 
> that the
>     whole system would break. there is way to translate and it can
>     definitely use smarter engine
>     MA: and what about changing your translated file
>     KW: polyinstantiation uses translated labels. it is something 
> people need to
>     be aware of that their home dirs may go away.
>     MT: it should be changed to use raw
>     PM: there was same discussion for s-tar. stephen smalley came out 
> and said
>     he likes translated context than raw since it makes more sense
>     CH: it might make sense especially if you have different numbering 
> schema
>     JN: polyinstantiated dirs used to translate names ..
>     JA: do we have any translation which have / in them
>     JN: in the us government on labels it has / all over the place
>     LK: is there a need to have context as part of directory name
>     MA: this came up in last SELinux symposium.
>     JA: that should give you usability plus it is guaranteed unique
>     GW: hashed would be safest
>     PM: I understand this is convenient but how often is it done
>     KW: there is no reason why security user logged in as secret can't 
> read his
>     unclassified dir.
>     LK: if you check file level will you get full context
>     KW: kickstart uses level and category to set up polyinstantiation 
> not full
>     context. it doesn't need to be fully unique. it's a nice thing it
>     doesn't    polyinstantiate based on user name.
>     JA: ..
>     KW: my gut feeling is keep it way it is with translated format. 
> raw format     
>     has problems
>     JW: right we don't want to move everything to raw
>     KW: especially for tools ... it would be better if they use ...
>     CH: if old setrans file tried to concatenate A and B together...
>     KW: there are 2 different definitions
>     CH: translation library says there is no match, so I'll take A and 
> B and put
>     comma between them.
>     KW: if it uses syntax with commas I expect that to pass
>     CH: I would expect that to fail if it can't translate
>     KW: seems it can't translate back
>     GW: Other issues?
>     JL: kylie , lou and I saw we can't so ssh as secadm .. is there a 
> boolean
>     for that?
>     DW: there is a boolean. you can't specify to secadm?
>     KH: I'll check on that
>     KW: isn't secadm deprecated in this policy?
>     DW: might be a policy issue
>     GW: should we expect them to be deprecated
>     KW: it is not possible for sysadm to start setrans daemon in 
> enforcing.
>     DW: did you run through init?
>     KW: yes. I'll send an email
>     PM: maybe because it runs as systemHigh
>     KH: auditadm works ok, but not secadm.. wait I wasn't in enforcing
>     JL: sysadm only works, secadm and auditadm doesn't
>     DW: ok, it should be an easy fix.
>     JN: has joy changes made it to latest policy?
>     DW: I put them in latest
>     JL: I sent patch so setkey can look at directories. I sent you 
> patch so
>     setkey can't look in user home dirs for config files and such.
>     DW: where is user likely to create these things?
>     JL: I don't know where. I figured setkey should only run as 
> sysadm, so I
>     don't need to be looking in user directories. SO I changed it to 
> look in
>     sysadm user dir, /etc/ and maybe /tmp
>     DW: Ok, I saw the patch. I'll take another look at it
>     KW: problem with setrans, if you use runinit it doesn't seem to 
> know there
>     are others running, so it creates another one. It seems to have a pid
>     file.
>     DW: if you say run-init status what does it show you?
>     KW: shows stopped
>     DW: so it is not seeing pid file. what is label on pid file
>     KW: systemhigh
>     PM: what happens if you try to query if you are at systemhigh
>     KW: I get no such file or directory for pid file.
>
> PAM and VFS polyinstantiation
> ==============================
>
> ssh level selection
> ====================
>
> IPsec localhost, IPv6, 1st packet drop
> ======================================
>     GW: talked about most of networking. first packet drop is not 
> going to get
>     fixed anytime soon since it is a big fix. I am wondering the
>     ramifications
>     JN: I think it is a big impact
>     JN: there was email with james morris and he said he had a patch 
> but it
>     wasn't ready for prime time. he said I should use openswan. I was
>     surprised he did that
>     JL: openswan doesn't use native ipsec either
>     CH: it does now
>     JN: he said if he didn't use pfkey symmantics he didn't see it. I 
> wasn't
>     sure
>     CH: I think this can't be fixed . if you use netlink
>     JL: regardless of socket API .. shouldn't be the same
>     CH: I think we still do...
>     JN: james said he had patch which fixes blocking packet. even if 
> it is 60 or
>     80% solution, it is better than nothing. In our solution I put a 
> check
>     and just make it try again, but this is not a solution for 3rd party
>     tools
>     JA: we can put that in glibc. obviously not the right thing to do
>     GW: if we don't do anything, labeled ipsec solution will be useless
>     JN: I think it'll be problematic.
>     CH: It is not completely useless. it does work, but just has 
> initial setup
>     problem
>     GW: I think most people are setting VPN tunnels
>     IB: is there a defect number.
>     JL: I'll open one now
>     IB: there are 2 that I can see but not what you are discussing
>     GW: joy will open a bug today. Thanks Joy. I am thinking what is 
> this going
>     to mean for certification.
>     JL: it will be problematic
>     SG: what we need is to get bug open and I'll get that to kernel 
> managers and
>     see who we can get assigned to it.
>     JL: ok, I'll open a bug now and mail number on lspp list
>     GW: is there some hope that we can fix this for cert
>     JA: if we have to we can input that in glibc
>     SG: not sure they would let us do that though
>     JA: yeah. just if we have to
>     SG: start with a bug and I'll talk to kernel managers. once we 
> have estimate
>     we'll decide.
>     LK: are you going to open bug for no prompt on first boot george
>     GW: yes, I wasn't sure first if it was a real bug
>     JN: I think this packet dropped discussion is good
>     LK: what kernel are you running Joe
>     JN: we have .63 and hacked up version to make racoon work with 
> local host
>
> Self tests / aide
> =================
>     GW: I've done nothing since last week. been trying to get runcon 
> transitions
>     to work, not able to get that to happen from python.
>     MA: is runcon supposed to work in mls policy
>     GW: it should if you give it sufficient policy. another process is 
> to have
>     processes running at high and low beforehand
>     DW: it would work if you are changing your policy. so it runs on 
> command
>     line, but not in the python
>     GW: i get invalid context ..
>     DW: how are you doing exec in python
>     GW: os.system
>     PM: I wonder if that invalid context is cause of your problem
>     GW: I can do it on command line ..
>     PM: wonder if you are getting bit by that translation problem
>     MA: you are using system high and low right, not messing with weird
>     combinations.
>     GW: yeah .. I think if I give perms to use everything, then it 
> should have
>     permission
>     PM: does python have its own domain
>     DW: no
>     LK: there was some stuff on selinux about python recently
>     GW: fact that says it can't write to /tmp file is weird
>     JA: is that on ..
>     DW: is python throwing an exception
>     GW: no it is what get puts on stderr. I feel it is coming from runcon
>     MA: is your runcon still bin_t
>     CH: further testing of translation .. it seems A,B doesn't translate
>     backward... there is old definition we had compartment problem. it 
> seems
>     translation daemon had smart in it to make A,B valid.
>     KW: there are 2 things AB is specific translation, which is not 
> good idea if
>     you have to define each combination. second issue is in forward it
>     translates A,B but in backward it can't translate, I expect them 
> to be
>     reversible
>     GW: anything else? ok .. we'll adjourn. I'll post self test 
> results see if
>     anyone sees any issues. Thank you all.
>
> Cron
> ====
>
> Bugs / remaining tasks
> ======================
>
> Final cutoff date
> ==================
>
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