Re: [PATCH 1/4] seccomp: add SECCOMP_RET_USER_NOTIF_ALLOW

Christian Brauner
2019-09-19T06:53:27Z

On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 10:30:00AM -0700, Kees Cook wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 10:48:30AM +0200, Christian Brauner wrote:
> > This allows the seccomp notifier to continue a syscall. A positive
> > discussion about this feature was triggered by a post to the
> > ksummit-discuss mailing list (cf. [3]) and took place during KSummit
> > (cf. [1]) and again at the containers/checkpoint-restore
> > micro-conference at Linux Plumbers.
> >
> > Recently we landed seccomp support for SECCOMP_RET_USER_NOTIF (cf. [4])
> > which enables a process (watchee) to retrieve an fd for its seccomp
> > filter. This fd can then be handed to another (usually more privileged)
> > process (watcher). The watcher will then be able to receive seccomp
> > messages about the syscalls having been performed by the watchee.
> >
> > This feature is heavily used in some userspace workloads. For example,
> > it is currently used to intercept mknod() syscalls in user namespaces
> > aka in containers.
> > The mknod() syscall can be easily filtered based on dev_t. This allows
> > us to only intercept a very specific subset of mknod() syscalls.
> > Furthermore, mknod() is not possible in user namespaces toto coelo and
> > so intercepting and denying syscalls that are not in the whitelist on
> > accident is not a big deal. The watchee won't notice a difference.
> >
> > In contrast to mknod(), a lot of other syscall we intercept (e.g.
> > setxattr()) cannot be easily filtered like mknod() because they have
> > pointer arguments. Additionally, some of them might actually succeed in
> > user namespaces (e.g. setxattr() for all "user.*" xattrs). Since we
> > currently cannot tell seccomp to continue from a user notifier we are
> > stuck with performing all of the syscalls in lieu of the container. This
> > is a huge security liability since it is extremely difficult to
> > correctly assume all of the necessary privileges of the calling task
> > such that the syscall can be successfully emulated without escaping
> > other additional security restrictions (think missing CAP_MKNOD for
> > mknod(), or MS_NODEV on a filesystem etc.). This can be solved by
> > telling seccomp to resume the syscall.
> >
> > One thing that came up in the discussion was the problem that another
> > thread could change the memory after userspace has decided to let the
> > syscall continue which is a well known TOCTOU with seccomp which is
> > present in other ways already.
> > The discussion showed that this feature is already very useful for any
> > syscall without pointer arguments. For any accidentally intercepted
> > non-pointer syscall it is safe to continue.
> > For syscalls with pointer arguments there is a race but for any cautious
> > userspace and the main usec cases the race doesn't matter. The notifier
> > is intended to be used in a scenario where a more privileged watcher
> > supervises the syscalls of lesser privileged watchee to allow it to get
> > around kernel-enforced limitations by performing the syscall for it
> > whenever deemed save by the watcher. Hence, if a user tricks the watcher
> > into allowing a syscall they will either get a deny based on
> > kernel-enforced restrictions later or they will have changed the
> > arguments in such a way that they manage to perform a syscall with
> > arguments that they would've been allowed to do anyway.
> > In general, it is good to point out again, that the notifier fd was not
> > intended to allow userspace to implement a security policy but rather to
> > work around kernel security mechanisms in cases where the watcher knows
> > that a given action is safe to perform.
> >
> > /* References */
> > [1]: https://linuxplumbersconf.org/event/4/contributions/560
> > [2]: https://linuxplumbersconf.org/event/4/contributions/477
> > [3]: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20190719093538.dhyopljyr5ns33qx@brauner.io
> > [4]: commit 6a21cc50f0c7 ("seccomp: add a return code to trap to userspace")
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner <christian.brauner@ubuntu.com>
> > Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
> > Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>
> > Cc: Will Drewry <wad@chromium.org>
> > Cc: Tycho Andersen <tycho@tycho.ws>
> > CC: Tyler Hicks <tyhicks@canonical.com>
> > Cc: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
> > ---
> > include/uapi/linux/seccomp.h | 2 ++
> > kernel/seccomp.c | 24 ++++++++++++++++++++----
> > 2 files changed, 22 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/include/uapi/linux/seccomp.h b/include/uapi/linux/seccomp.h
> > index 90734aa5aa36..2c23b9aa6383 100644
> > --- a/include/uapi/linux/seccomp.h
> > +++ b/include/uapi/linux/seccomp.h
> > @@ -76,6 +76,8 @@ struct seccomp_notif {
> > struct seccomp_data data;
> > };
> >
> > +#define SECCOMP_RET_USER_NOTIF_ALLOW 0x00000001
>
> nit: I'd like to avoid confusion here about what "family" these flags
> belong to. "SECCOMP_RET_..." is used for the cBPF filter return action
> value, so let's instead call this:
>
> #define SECCOMP_USER_NOTIF_CONTINUE BIT(0)

Ack.

>
> I'm thinking of "continue" as slightly different from "allow", in the
> sense that I'd like to hint that this doesn't mean arguments could have
> been reliably "filtered" via user notification.

Good point.

>
> And at the same time, please add a giant comment about this in the
> header that details the purpose ("check if I should do something on
> behalf of the process") and not "is this safe to allow?", due to the
> argument parsing ToCToU.

Yeah, I'll copy parts of what I described in the commit message down
into the code.

>
> > -static void seccomp_do_user_notification(int this_syscall,
> > +static bool seccomp_do_user_notification(int this_syscall,
>
> I'd prefer this stay an "int", just to keep it similar to the other
> functions that are checked in __seccomp_filter().

Ack.

>
> > + /* perform syscall */
>
> nit: expand this commit to something like "Userspace requests we
> continue and perform syscall".

Ack.

>
> > + if (flags & SECCOMP_RET_USER_NOTIF_ALLOW)
> > + return false;
>
> return 0;
>
> > +
> > syscall_set_return_value(current, task_pt_regs(current),
> > err, ret);
> > + return true;
>
> return -1;
>
> (This makes it look more like a "skip on failure")

Ack.

>
> > + if (resp.flags & ~SECCOMP_RET_USER_NOTIF_ALLOW)
> > + return -EINVAL;
> > +
> > + if ((resp.flags & SECCOMP_RET_USER_NOTIF_ALLOW) &&
> > + (resp.error || resp.val))
> > return -EINVAL;
>
> Ah yeah, good idea.
>
> Beyond these nits, yes, looks good and should help the usability of this
> feature. Thanks for getting it written and tested!

Will rework and resend!

Thanks for the review! :)
Christian