[Virtio-fs] virtiofs and its optional xattr support vs. fs_use_xattr

[Dominick Grift]

Vivek Goyal <vgoyal at redhat.com> writes:

> On Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 10:22:35PM +0100, Dominick Grift wrote:
>> Vivek Goyal <vgoyal at redhat.com> writes:
>> 
>> > On Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 10:03:24AM -0500, Paul Moore wrote:
>> >> On Mon, Dec 7, 2020 at 9:43 AM Ondrej Mosnacek <omosnace at redhat.com> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > Hi everyone,
>> >> >
>> >> > In [1] we ran into a problem with the current handling of filesystem
>> >> > labeling rules. Basically, it is only possible to specify either
>> >> > genfscon or fs_use_xattr for a given filesystem, but in the case of
>> >> > virtiofs, certain mounts may support security xattrs, while other ones
>> >> > may not.
>> >> 
>> >
>> > [ cc virtio-fs list and miklos ]
>> >> Quickly skimming the linked GH issue, it appears that the problem
>> >> really lies in the fact that virtiofs allows one to enable/disable
>> >> xattrs at mount time.  What isn't clear to me is why one would need to
>> >> disable xattrs, can you explain that use case?  Why does enabling
>> >> xattrs in virtiofs cause problems?
>> >
>> > Its not exactly a mount time option. Its a virtiofs file server option.
>> >
>> > xattr support by default is disabled because it has performance
>> > penalty. Users can enable it if they want to.
>> 
>> if SELinux is enabled then you should preferably just use fs_use xattr unconditionally
>> 
>> >
>> > So if virtiofsd starts without xattr support and somebody runs a
>> > VM with SELinux enabled, they should still be able to mount virtiofs,
>> > I guess (instead of failing it).
>> 
>> SELinux requires that everything is always labeled one way or another
>> and so if SELinux is enabled one should either use genfscon or fs_use xattr
>> 
>> Since is support fs_use xattr that should be the default and if any
>> would for any reason want to replace that with genfscon then that is
>> something they have to address (by excluding the fs_use xattr rule and
>> replacing it with a genfscon rule (not sure why anyone would ever want
>> that)
>> 
>> Gist is that if SELinux is enabled then one of the two should be
>> present, preferably fs_use xattr (so thats the default).
>
> I understand that current state is that one needs to choose either
> genfscon or fs_use_xattr depending on filesystem type. Will be nice
> if this was more flexibile.

>
> If virtiofsd is running on top of a filesystem which does not support
> xattr, then also virtiofs mount will fail.

>
> IOW, with virtiofs both kind of configurations can be easily produed
> (xattr enabled or disabled). So none of the defaults (genfscon or
> fs_use_xattr) seems to be ideal.
>
> IIUC, policy is assuming that virtiofs will either always support xattr
> or will not always support xattrs. Which probably is true for many
> filesystems. But not necessarily in this case. So hard coding one
> assumption will break other configurations. It will be nice if we there
> is a way to fix this in policy.

Sorry I think I misunderstood the issue. James Carter's solution sounds
like the way to go.

Either that or just dont support fs_use xattr and always mount the whole
location with a context specified from configuration (mount -t virtiofs -o context=).


>
> Thanks
> Vivek
>

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Dominick Grift