10:50 a.m.
On Tuesday, November 13, 2018 11:30:55 AM EST Paul Moore wrote:
On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 10:25 AM Ondrej Mosnacek
<omosnace(a)redhat.com>
wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 9:19 PM Paul Moore
<paul(a)paul-moore.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 3:09 AM Ondrej Mosnacek <omosnace(a)redhat.com>
wrote:
> > > On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 12:30 AM Paul Moore
<paul(a)paul-moore.com>
wrote:
> > > > Let's reset this discussion a bit ... if we
abolish relative paths
> > > > and make everything absolute, is there even a need to log PARENT?
I believe that Al Viro has said that sometime paths are not resolvable in the
future. For example process A opens a file. It passes the descriptor to
another process using scm rights. Directory tree is deleted. Process B
receives the descriptor. Process A exits. Process B is now accessing what?
> > > If there ever was such need, then this won't
change when we switch to
> > > absolute paths. The PATH records contain some fields (inode, dev,
> > > obj, that can be different for the child and parent and I would say
> > > these are the only new information that the PARENT records provide
> > > over the corresponding CREATE/DELETE records.
> >
> > Sigh. Of course the inode information is going to be different
> > between the object in question and the parent, they are different
> > filesystem objects. Ask your self the bigger question: does the
> > PARENT record provide me any security relevant information related to
> > the filesystem object that is being accessed?
>
> I would say it does. Consider e.g. the "mode" and "obj" fields.
When
> you move (rename) a file from one directory to another (which is the
> main, if not the only, case when a PARENT record is emitted), then you
> are usually more interested in the values for the parent directory
> than the file itself (that's what determines if you can move the
> file).
I disagree on the importance of the mode/obj of the parent in a rename
operation. From my perspective I really only care about the
filesystem object that is being moved and if it succeeded or not. The
idea that you care more about the parent than the object being moved
makes no sense to me at all.
The mode is really not important.
> For example, assume you have a rule that logs whenever some
sensitive
> file gets moved. You do not expect that to happen because you set the
> file/directory permissions and labels so that it can't be done by
> anyone unauthorized. But something goes wrong, the permissions/labels
> get changed somehow ...
In which case you should be watching for changes to the filesystem
metadata which affect access rights. That is how you should catch
changes to permissions on a filesystem object as it gives you
information about the change as well as the subject information of the
user/process which made the change.
Right. You would watch for attribute changes on a directory.
> ... and a bad actor leverages the situation to move
> the file. Then later you want to investigate this security incident
> and as part of it you want to know what permissions were set on the
> directories involved that had allowed the file to be moved, because
> this may give you a useful lead. With PARENT records, you get such
> information, without them you don't.
If you only have that information in the parent record then you are
missing half the story, and it may be the important half as the
interesting bit of information in this example is the identity of the
user/process which was able to change permissions to enable the rename
to take place.
Unless Steve provides evidence of some compelling certification
requirement which necessitates the need for a parent record, I see no
reason to keep it.
Certification does not care about parent records. What is cares about is being
able to say what the object was that is acted upon. So, that would be device
and inode. But that is not nice for people. So, we would also like to know
the path name. If parent record are necessary because of the *at syscalls,
then that may be the only purpose. And they do not need to be emitted each
time. If we also have a full path, then they are not needed. If we have a
relative path, then CWD is needed, not the parent.
I also understand that at times full path resolution may not work out due to
directory permissions blocking access at a deeper level of the directory
tree. In those cases, we probably do want a PARENT record for the failed
access attempt. I think that discussion may have prompted creation of PARENT
records a long time ago. But at the same time, I also mentioned that the path
was passed as an arguement and we could always emit that...but we do not have
any other information such as mode or security label.
In summary, certification does not say we need PARENT directories of the
object. We need the object. And we only need help when its not clear what the
object was.
Hope this helps...
-Steve