Re: Filesystem Capabilities in 2.6?

[Olaf Dietsche <olaf.dietsche#list.linux-kernel@t-online.de>]

Patrick Finnegan <pat@purdueriots.com> writes:

> On Mon, 4 Nov 2002, Olaf Dietsche wrote:
>
>> Take a look at <http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/elfcap.html>.
>> Maybe this is what you had in mind?
>
> Similar, but not exactly the same:
>
> 1) Capabilities should be enabled explicitly not dropped explicitly -
>    it's a 'more secure' way to do it.
>
> 2) Capabilities shouldn't be preserved across an execve except for once,

For this you need to clear the permitted and inheritable set.

>    as needed by wrapper scripts/binaries. This way even if someone figures
>    out how to exploit the code to do an exec, they're left with no caps at
>    all.  If desired, a new binfmt "cap_wrap" could be created that can be
>    used as a capabilities wrapper for executables, which the kernel looks
>    at to determine 1) what caps to use and 2) what binary to run.  The
>    wrapper will need to be suid root in order to gain caps still.

Here you will find capabilities with a new binfmt type:
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=linux.kernel.20020317121118.A18548%40glacier.arctrix.com>

Elfcap and capwrap both allow to have capabilities.

Regards, Olaf.