Re: ioctl CAP_LINUX_IMMUTABLE is checked in the wrong namespace

Theodore Ts'o
2014-04-29T18:35:39Z

On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 04:49:14PM +0300, Marian Marinov wrote:
>
> I'm proposing a fix to this, by replacing the capable(CAP_LINUX_IMMUTABLE)
> check with ns_capable(current_cred()->user_ns, CAP_LINUX_IMMUTABLE).

Um, wouldn't it be better to simply fix the capable() function?

/**
* capable - Determine if the current task has a superior capability in effect
* @cap: The capability to be tested for
*
* Return true if the current task has the given superior capability currently
* available for use, false if not.
*
* This sets PF_SUPERPRIV on the task if the capability is available on the
* assumption that it's about to be used.
*/
bool capable(int cap)
{
return ns_capable(&init_user_ns, cap);
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL(capable);

The documentation states that it is for "the current task", and I
can't imagine any use case, where user namespaces are in effect, where
using init_user_ns would ever make sense.

No? Otherwise, pretty much every single use of capable() would be
broken, not just this once instances in ext4/ioctl.c.

- Ted