Re: [RFC][PATCH -v2] Smack: Integrate with Audit

On Wed, 2008-03-12 at 08:40 -0700, Casey Schaufler wrote: > --- Stephen Smalley <sds(a)tycho.nsa.gov&gt; wrote: > >> On Wed, 2008-03-12 at 04:44 +0200, Ahmed S. Darwish wrote: >>> Hi!, >>> >>> Setup the new Audit hooks for Smack. The AUDIT_SUBJ_USER and >>> AUDIT_OBJ_USER SELinux flags are recycled to avoid `auditd' >>> userspace modifications. Smack only needs auditing on >>> a subject/object bases, so those flags were enough. >> Only question I have is whether audit folks are ok with reuse of the >> flags in this manner, and whether the _USER flag is best suited for this >> purpose if you are going to reuse an existing flag (since Smack label >> seems more like a SELinux type than a SELinux user). > To-mate-o toe-maht-o. > > There really doesn't seem to be any real reason to create a new > flag just because the granularity is different. The choice between > _USER and _TYPE (and _ROLE for that matter) is arbitrary from a > functional point of view. I say that since Smack has users, but > not types or roles, _USER makes the most sense. Perhaps I misunderstand, but Smack labels don't represent users (i.e. user identity) in any way, so it seemed like a mismatch to use the _USER flag there. Whereas types in SELinux bear some similarity to Smack labels - simple unstructured names whose meaning is only defined by the policy rules. Regardless, it seems like the audit maintainers ought to weigh in on the matter.

>> Certainly will confuse matters if a user has audit filters on SELinux >> users in their /etc/audit/audit.rules and then boots a kernel with Smack >> enabled. > Somehow I doubt that will be their biggest concern.