Re: [capabilities] Allow normal inheritance for a configurable set of capabilities

Christoph Lameter
2015-02-04T15:50:09Z

On Wed, 4 Feb 2015, Andrew G. Morgan wrote:

> I'm not generally in favor of this. Mostly because this seems to be a
> mini-root kind of inheritance that propagates privilege to binaries
> that aren't prepared for privilege. I don't really buy the mmap code
> concern because the model as it stands says that you trust the binary
> (and all of the various ways it was programmed to execute code) with
> specific privileges. If the binary mmap's some code (PAM modules come
> to mind) then that is part of what it was programmed to/allowed to do.
>
> That being said, if you really really want this kind of thing, then
> make it a single secure bit (with another lock on/off bit) which, when
> set, makes: fI default to X.
>
> pP' = (X & fP) | (pI & fI)
>
> That way the per-process bounding set still works as advertised and
> you don't need to worry about the existing semantics being violated.

Ok but then also fI needs to be set to X so that the binary f invokes
can also inherit. So if we copy the inheritable flags to fI then we
wont be needing the bounding set anymore.

The changes to brpm_caps_from_vfs_cap would then
be only the following? (substitute capable(CAP_INHERIT_BY_DEFAULT through
any other means like PRCTL if wanted).

Index: linux/security/commoncap.c
===================================================================
--- linux.orig/security/commoncap.c 2015-02-04 09:44:25.000000000 -0600
+++ linux/security/commoncap.c 2015-02-04 09:45:59.381572756 -0600
@@ -350,6 +350,9 @@ static inline int bprm_caps_from_vfs_cap
__u32 permitted = caps->permitted.cap[i];
__u32 inheritable = caps->inheritable.cap[i];

+ if (capable(CAP_INHERIT_BY_DEFAULT)
+ new->cap_inheritable.cap[i] = inheritable;
+
/*
* pP' = (X & fP) | (pI & fI)
*/