From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755371Ab0CHSyQ (ORCPT ); Mon, 8 Mar 2010 13:54:16 -0500 Received: from zeniv.linux.org.uk ([195.92.253.2]:37068 "EHLO ZenIV.linux.org.uk" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755186Ab0CHSyD (ORCPT ); Mon, 8 Mar 2010 13:54:03 -0500 Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 18:53:46 +0000 From: Al Viro To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Alan Cox , Ingo Molnar , James Morris , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Kyle McMartin , Alexander Viro Subject: Re: Upstream first policy Message-ID: <20100308185346.GL30031@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> References: <20100308094647.GA14268@elte.hu> <20100308173008.7ae389ab@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> <20100308184521.GK30031@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20100308184521.GK30031@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-08-17) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Mon, Mar 08, 2010 at 06:45:21PM +0000, Al Viro wrote: > On Mon, Mar 08, 2010 at 10:08:31AM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > In other words: it really _does_ make more sense to say "this process has > > rights to overwrite the path '/etc/passwd'" than it does to try to label > > the file. The _fundamental_ rule is about the pathname. The labeling comes > > about BECAUSE YOU USED A HAMMER FOR A SCREW. > > > > I really don't understand why some people are unable to admit this fact. > > Because you don't have to use that pathname to modify the bits returned > by read() after open() on that pathname? > > I'm not fond of selinux, to put it mildly, but "pathname-based" stuff simply > doesn't match how the pathname resolution is defined on Unix... PS: at that point the *only* things I care about wrt "security" junk are * it shouldn't create new assertions to keep for VFS and fs code * it shouldn't break the normal Unix permissions for boxen that sanely have all that crap disabled * it shouldn't make one vomit just from RTFS * it shouldn't create obvious rootholes when enabled * it shouldn't add overhead from hell * it shouldn't try to hide the violations of the conditions above My opinion of the "security community" is worse than yours, BTW. You have decided that to let their stuff in; IMO it had been a mistake from the very beginning, but that's your tree.