Re: [PATCH (mmotm-2008-12-02-17-08)] Introduce security_path_set/clear() hooks.

["Serge E. Hallyn" <serue@us.ibm.com>]

Quoting Tetsuo Handa (penguin-kernel@I-love.SAKURA.ne.jp):
> Hello.
> 
> Stephen Smalley wrote:
> > On Wed, 2008-12-03 at 17:56 +0900, Kentaro Takeda wrote:
> > > Stephen, Serge,
> > > Here is the patch for introducing new security_path_set()/clear() hooks.
> > > 
> > > This patch enables LSM module to remember vfsmount's pathname so that it can 
> > > calculate absolute pathname in security_inode_*(). Since actual MAC can be 
> > > performed after DAC, there will not be any noise in auditing and learning 
> > > features. This patch currently assumes that the vfsmount's pathname is stored in 
> > > hash table in LSM module. (Should I use stack memory?)
> > > 
> > > Since security_inode_*() are not always called after security_path_set(), 
> > > security_path_clear() hook is needed to free the remembered pathname.
> > 
> > Your security_path_set()/security_path_clear() pairs look rather similar
> > to mnt_want_write()/mnt_drop_write() pairs.  What if you were to call
> > your hooks from those functions, and then you would only need to add
> > further hook calls in the case of read-only and execute/search checks?
> 
> Right. Locations of inserting security_path_set()/security_path_clear() pairs
> are subset of mnt_want_write()/mnt_drop_write() pairs. Thus, we can insert
> security_path_set()/security_path_clear() pairs into
> mnt_want_write()/mnt_drop_write() pairs, if we can tolerate performance
> regression. According to our rough measurement, there is about 8 - 22% of
> performance regression.

... compared to what, exactly?

If having CONFIG_SECURITY_PATH=y but TOMOYO  disabled has this kind of
regression against just not having CONFIG_SECURITY_PATH, then no that is
not acceptable.

-serge