Re: Time to remove LSM (was Re: [RESEND][RFC][PATCH 2/7] implementation of LSM hooks)

Arjan van de Ven
2006-04-24T13:40:59Z

On Mon, 2006-04-24 at 08:29 -0500, Serge E. Hallyn wrote:
> Quoting Arjan van de Ven (arjan@infradead.org):
> > On Mon, 2006-04-24 at 08:09 -0500, Serge E. Hallyn wrote:
> > > Quoting Arjan van de Ven (arjan@infradead.org):
> > > > for all such things in the first place. In fact, we already know that to
> > > > do auditing, LSM is the wrong thing to do (and that's why audit doesn't
> > > > use LSM). It's one of those fundamental linux truths: Trying to be
> > >
> > > As I recall it was simply decided that LSM must be "access control
> > > only", and that was why it wasn't used for audit.
> >
> > no you recall incorrectly.
> > Audit needs to audit things that didn't work out, like filenames that
> > don't exist. Audit needs to know what is going to happen before the
> > entire "is this allowed" chain is going to be followed. SELInux and
> > other LSM parts are just one part of that chain, and there's zero
> > guarantee that you get to the LSM part in the chain..... Now of course
>
> Ah yes. It needed to be authoritative. I did recall incorrectly.
>
> I suspect some would argue that you are right that LSM is broken, but
> only because it wasn't allowed to be authoritative.

authoritative isn't enough; think about it. The VFS isn't ever going to
ask "can I open this file" if the file doesn't exist in the first place;
same in many other places. You'd have to almost double the hooks, and as
I said, to call those hooks "LSM" would be silly and dishonest.

LSM is not Hooks-R-Us. It's a permission model.