Re: releasibility in mcstransd

[Joshua Brindle <method@manicmethod.com>]

Joe Nall wrote:
> 
> On Jun 9, 2008, at 4:04 PM, Chad Hanson wrote:
> 
>>
>> Seems reasonable to me unless you want to create a nice new encoding
>> language ;)
>>
>> How would the user process translate, eg, s0:c102.c128, just s0?
>>
>> -Chad
> 
> Attached is a source rpm based on the mcstransd we are using internally.
> It can translate ranges that look like:
> 
> Secret Releasable to USA/FRA/DEU/ZWI
> Confidential Rel GBR
> Secret A
> Secret Noforn
> Secret Rel to USA/GBR-Secret Noforn
> Restricted Handle Via Iron,Plastic,Copper Pipes Only-Restricted Handle
> Via Iron Pipes Only
> ...
> 
> It supports the idea of default inverse bits, multiple domains of
> translation (still needs some protocol support) and aliases for levels
> and compartments. The example setrans.conf include an implementation of
> releasabilities based on ISO 3166 three letter country codes and FIPS-10
> two letter country codes pulled from the CIA World Factbook. Any
> combination or permutation of releasabilities with arbitrary prefix and
> suffix is supported.
> 
> There is an include mechanism to allow segregating category
> configuration into separate files of related words and a python test
> harness with the tests in separate files.
> 
> We have used the code internally to translate the US CAPCO markings
> standard (minus the words with '-' in them).
> 
> I've been meaning to release it for the better part of a year and Josh's
> email persuaded me to go ahead even though there are a number of things
> remaining on the TO DO list:
>  - a simple constraints language so you can say that categories foo and
> bar can not be in the same level together.
>  - finish the multiple domain of translation support (multiple languages
> and paragraph markings)
>  - more hardening
>  - better first translation performance (subsequent translations are
> cached)
>  - words with embedded '-'
>  - man pages :(
> 
> There is a README in the conf directory describing the configuration
> file format and a number of examples in the sample configuration and
> test files.
> 
> To install and test (as root in MLS/Permissive)
> 
> rpm -ivh mcstrans-0.3.0-1.jnall.src.rpm
> rpmbuild -bb /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/mcstrans.spec
> rpm -Uvh /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/*/mcstrans-*.rpm
> 
> cd /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/mcstrans-0.3.0/conf
> cp -rp setrans.conf setrans.d /etc/selinux/mls/
> restorecon -rv /etc/selinux/mls
> service mcstrans restart
> 
> cd /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/mcstrans-0.3.0/utils
> make test
> 

Thanks for this. I started looking at the diff and it is pretty significant, it might take me a while to get through it all. One thing I noticed immediately is that you are duplicating interfaces present in libsepol such as mls_level_to_string, mls_level_from_string and importing private headers from libsepol. 

I don't think we want to proceed this way. If possible we should be using the libsepol interfaces and encapsulating the private types as necessary.

The ebitmap operations can certainly be put in libsepol but shouldn't be called directly the way they are.

It looks like quite a few todo's and hacks are in there as well. I'll try to help as much as I can, and hopefully we can get this in good shape to merge in to Dan's codebase. Are you going to have any time to work on this?


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