From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Karl MacMillan Subject: Re: AppArmor FAQ Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 15:23:20 -0400 Message-ID: <1177097000.17691.20.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <20070416213350.GB4030@suse.de> <1176822230.3366.65.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1176825641.5946.41.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1177004790.27654.147.camel@moss-spartans.epoch.ncsc.mil> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Stephen Smalley , Andi Kleen , David Safford , James Morris , John Johansen , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-security-module@vger.kernel.org, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org To: David Lang Return-path: In-Reply-To: Sender: linux-security-module-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org On Fri, 2007-04-20 at 11:45 -0700, David Lang wrote: > On Thu, 19 Apr 2007, Stephen Smalley wrote: > > > already happened to integrate such support into userland. > > > > To look at it in a slightly different way, the AA emphasis on not > > modifying applications could be viewed as a limitation. Ultimately, > > users have security goals that go beyond just what the OS can directly > > enforce and at least some applications (notably things like X, D-BUS, > > PostgreSQL, etc) need to likewise support strong domain separation and > > controlled information flow through their own internal objects and > > operations. SELinux provides APIs and infrastructure for such > > applications, and has already done quite a bit of work in that space > > (D-BUS support, XACE/XSELinux, SE-PostgreSQL), whereas AA seems to have > > no interest in going there (and would have to recant its emphasis on no > > application mods to do so). If you actually want to truly confine a > > desktop application, you can't limit yourself to the kernel. And the > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > > label model provides a unifying abstraction for dealing with all of > > these various objects, whereas the path/"natural abstraction" model has > > no unifying abstraction at all. > > > AA isn't aimed at confineing desktop applications. it's aimed at confining > server applications. this really is a easier task (if it happens to be useful > for some desktop apps as well, so much the better) > Steve's point holds equally well for server applications - SE-PostgreSQl is a good example. Karl