diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/credentials.txt | 582 |
1 files changed, 582 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/credentials.txt b/Documentation/credentials.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..df03169782ea --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/credentials.txt @@ -0,0 +1,582 @@ + ==================== + CREDENTIALS IN LINUX + ==================== + +By: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> + +Contents: + + (*) Overview. + + (*) Types of credentials. + + (*) File markings. + + (*) Task credentials. + + - Immutable credentials. + - Accessing task credentials. + - Accessing another task's credentials. + - Altering credentials. + - Managing credentials. + + (*) Open file credentials. + + (*) Overriding the VFS's use of credentials. + + +======== +OVERVIEW +======== + +There are several parts to the security check performed by Linux when one +object acts upon another: + + (1) Objects. + + Objects are things in the system that may be acted upon directly by + userspace programs. Linux has a variety of actionable objects, including: + + - Tasks + - Files/inodes + - Sockets + - Message queues + - Shared memory segments + - Semaphores + - Keys + + As a part of the description of all these objects there is a set of + credentials. What's in the set depends on the type of object. + + (2) Object ownership. + + Amongst the credentials of most objects, there will be a subset that + indicates the ownership of that object. This is used for resource + accounting and limitation (disk quotas and task rlimits for example). + + In a standard UNIX filesystem, for instance, this will be defined by the + UID marked on the inode. + + (3) The objective context. + + Also amongst the credentials of those objects, there will be a subset that + indicates the 'objective context' of that object. This may or may not be + the same set as in (2) - in standard UNIX files, for instance, this is the + defined by the UID and the GID marked on the inode. + + The objective context is used as part of the security calculation that is + carried out when an object is acted upon. + + (4) Subjects. + + A subject is an object that is acting upon another object. + + Most of the objects in the system are inactive: they don't act on other + objects within the system. Processes/tasks are the obvious exception: + they do stuff; they access and manipulate things. + + Objects other than tasks may under some circumstances also be subjects. + For instance an open file may send SIGIO to a task using the UID and EUID + given to it by a task that called fcntl(F_SETOWN) upon it. In this case, + the file struct will have a subjective context too. + + (5) The subjective context. + + A subject has an additional interpretation of its credentials. A subset + of its credentials forms the 'subjective context'. The subjective context + is used as part of the security calculation that is carried out when a + subject acts. + + A Linux task, for example, has the FSUID, FSGID and the supplementary + group list for when it is acting upon a file - which are quite separate + from the real UID and GID that normally form the objective context of the + task. + + (6) Actions. + + Linux has a number of actions available that a subject may perform upon an + object. The set of actions available depends on the nature of the subject + and the object. + + Actions include reading, writing, creating and deleting files; forking or + signalling and tracing tasks. + + (7) Rules, access control lists and security calculations. + + When a subject acts upon an object, a security calculation is made. This + involves taking the subjective context, the objective context and the + action, and searching one or more sets of rules to see whether the subject + is granted or denied permission to act in the desired manner on the + object, given those contexts. + + There are two main sources of rules: + + (a) Discretionary access control (DAC): + + Sometimes the object will include sets of rules as part of its + description. This is an 'Access Control List' or 'ACL'. A Linux + file may supply more than one ACL. + + A traditional UNIX file, for example, includes a permissions mask that + is an abbreviated ACL with three fixed classes of subject ('user', + 'group' and 'other'), each of which may be granted certain privileges + ('read', 'write' and 'execute' - whatever those map to for the object + in question). UNIX file permissions do not allow the arbitrary + specification of subjects, however, and so are of limited use. + + A Linux file might also sport a POSIX ACL. This is a list of rules + that grants various permissions to arbitrary subjects. + + (b) Mandatory access control (MAC): + + The system as a whole may have one or more sets of rules that get + applied to all subjects and objects, regardless of their source. + SELinux and Smack are examples of this. + + In the case of SELinux and Smack, each object is given a label as part + of its credentials. When an action is requested, they take the + subject label, the object label and the action and look for a rule + that says that this action is either granted or denied. + + +==================== +TYPES OF CREDENTIALS +==================== + +The Linux kernel supports the following types of credentials: + + (1) Traditional UNIX credentials. + + Real User ID + Real Group ID + + The UID and GID are carried by most, if not all, Linux objects, even if in + some cases it has to be invented (FAT or CIFS files for example, which are + derived from Windows). These (mostly) define the objective context of + that object, with tasks being slightly different in some cases. + + Effective, Saved and FS User ID + Effective, Saved and FS Group ID + Supplementary groups + + These are additional credentials used by tasks only. Usually, an + EUID/EGID/GROUPS will be used as the subjective context, and real UID/GID + will be used as the objective. For tasks, it should be noted that this is + not always true. + + (2) Capabilities. + + Set of permitted capabilities + Set of inheritable capabilities + Set of effective capabilities + Capability bounding set + + These are only carried by tasks. They indicate superior capabilities + granted piecemeal to a task that an ordinary task wouldn't otherwise have. + These are manipulated implicitly by changes to the traditional UNIX + credentials, but can also be manipulated directly by the capset() system + call. + + The permitted capabilities are those caps that the process might grant + itself to its effective or permitted sets through capset(). This + inheritable set might also be so constrained. + + The effective capabilities are the ones that a task is actually allowed to + make use of itself. + + The inheritable capabilities are the ones that may get passed across + execve(). + + The bounding set limits the capabilities that may be inherited across + execve(), especially when a binary is executed that will execute as UID 0. + + (3) Secure management flags (securebits). + + These are only carried by tasks. These govern the way the above + credentials are manipulated and inherited over certain operations such as + execve(). They aren't used directly as objective or subjective + credentials. + + (4) Keys and keyrings. + + These are only carried by tasks. They carry and cache security tokens + that don't fit into the other standard UNIX credentials. They are for + making such things as network filesystem keys available to the file + accesses performed by processes, without the necessity of ordinary + programs having to know about security details involved. + + Keyrings are a special type of key. They carry sets of other keys and can + be searched for the desired key. Each process may subscribe to a number + of keyrings: + + Per-thread keying + Per-process keyring + Per-session keyring + + When a process accesses a key, if not already present, it will normally be + cached on one of these keyrings for future accesses to find. + + For more information on using keys, see Documentation/keys.txt. + + (5) LSM + + The Linux Security Module allows extra controls to be placed over the + operations that a task may do. Currently Linux supports two main + alternate LSM options: SELinux and Smack. + + Both work by labelling the objects in a system and then applying sets of + rules (policies) that say what operations a task with one label may do to + an object with another label. + + (6) AF_KEY + + This is a socket-based approach to credential management for networking + stacks [RFC 2367]. It isn't discussed by this document as it doesn't + interact directly with task and file credentials; rather it keeps system + level credentials. + + +When a file is opened, part of the opening task's subjective context is +recorded in the file struct created. This allows operations using that file +struct to use those credentials instead of the subjective context of the task +that issued the operation. An example of this would be a file opened on a +network filesystem where the credentials of the opened file should be presented +to the server, regardless of who is actually doing a read or a write upon it. + + +============= +FILE MARKINGS +============= + +Files on disk or obtained over the network may have annotations that form the +objective security context of that file. Depending on the type of filesystem, +this may include one or more of the following: + + (*) UNIX UID, GID, mode; + + (*) Windows user ID; + + (*) Access control list; + + (*) LSM security label; + + (*) UNIX exec privilege escalation bits (SUID/SGID); + + (*) File capabilities exec privilege escalation bits. + +These are compared to the task's subjective security context, and certain +operations allowed or disallowed as a result. In the case of execve(), the +privilege escalation bits come into play, and may allow the resulting process +extra privileges, based on the annotations on the executable file. + + +================ +TASK CREDENTIALS +================ + +In Linux, all of a task's credentials are held in (uid, gid) or through +(groups, keys, LSM security) a refcounted structure of type 'struct cred'. +Each task points to its credentials by a pointer called 'cred' in its +task_struct. + +Once a set of credentials has been prepared and committed, it may not be +changed, barring the following exceptions: + + (1) its reference count may be changed; + + (2) the reference count on the group_info struct it points to may be changed; + + (3) the reference count on the security data it points to may be changed; + + (4) the reference count on any keyrings it points to may be changed; + + (5) any keyrings it points to may be revoked, expired or have their security + attributes changed; and + + (6) the contents of any keyrings to which it points may be changed (the whole + point of keyrings being a shared set of credentials, modifiable by anyone + with appropriate access). + +To alter anything in the cred struct, the copy-and-replace principle must be +adhered to. First take a copy, then alter the copy and then use RCU to change +the task pointer to make it point to the new copy. There are wrappers to aid +with this (see below). + +A task may only alter its _own_ credentials; it is no longer permitted for a +task to alter another's credentials. This means the capset() system call is no +longer permitted to take any PID other than the one of the current process. +Also keyctl_instantiate() and keyctl_negate() functions no longer permit +attachment to process-specific keyrings in the requesting process as the +instantiating process may need to create them. + + +IMMUTABLE CREDENTIALS +--------------------- + +Once a set of credentials has been made public (by calling commit_creds() for +example), it must be considered immutable, barring two exceptions: + + (1) The reference count may be altered. + + (2) Whilst the keyring subscriptions of a set of credentials may not be + changed, the keyrings subscribed to may have their contents altered. + +To catch accidental credential alteration at compile time, struct task_struct +has _const_ pointers to its credential sets, as does struct file. Furthermore, +certain functions such as get_cred() and put_cred() operate on const pointers, +thus rendering casts unnecessary, but require to temporarily ditch the const +qualification to be able to alter the reference count. + + +ACCESSING TASK CREDENTIALS +-------------------------- + +A task being able to alter only its own credentials permits the current process +to read or replace its own credentials without the need for any form of locking +- which simplifies things greatly. It can just call: + + const struct cred *current_cred() + +to get a pointer to its credentials structure, and it doesn't have to release +it afterwards. + +There are convenience wrappers for retrieving specific aspects of a task's +credentials (the value is simply returned in each case): + + uid_t current_uid(void) Current's real UID + gid_t current_gid(void) Current's real GID + uid_t current_euid(void) Current's effective UID + gid_t current_egid(void) Current's effective GID + uid_t current_fsuid(void) Current's file access UID + gid_t current_fsgid(void) Current's file access GID + kernel_cap_t current_cap(void) Current's effective capabilities + void *current_security(void) Current's LSM security pointer + struct user_struct *current_user(void) Current's user account + +There are also convenience wrappers for retrieving specific associated pairs of +a task's credentials: + + void current_uid_gid(uid_t *, gid_t *); + void current_euid_egid(uid_t *, gid_t *); + void current_fsuid_fsgid(uid_t *, gid_t *); + +which return these pairs of values through their arguments after retrieving +them from the current task's credentials. + + +In addition, there is a function for obtaining a reference on the current +process's current set of credentials: + + const struct cred *get_current_cred(void); + +and functions for getting references to one of the credentials that don't +actually live in struct cred: + + struct user_struct *get_current_user(void); + struct group_info *get_current_groups(void); + +which get references to the current process's user accounting structure and +supplementary groups list respectively. + +Once a reference has been obtained, it must be released with put_cred(), +free_uid() or put_group_info() as appropriate. + + +ACCESSING ANOTHER TASK'S CREDENTIALS +------------------------------------ + +Whilst a task may access its own credentials without the need for locking, the +same is not true of a task wanting to access another task's credentials. It +must use the RCU read lock and rcu_dereference(). + +The rcu_dereference() is wrapped by: + + const struct cred *__task_cred(struct task_struct *task); + +This should be used inside the RCU read lock, as in the following example: + + void foo(struct task_struct *t, struct foo_data *f) + { + const struct cred *tcred; + ... + rcu_read_lock(); + tcred = __task_cred(t); + f->uid = tcred->uid; + f->gid = tcred->gid; + f->groups = get_group_info(tcred->groups); + rcu_read_unlock(); + ... + } + +A function need not get RCU read lock to use __task_cred() if it is holding a +spinlock at the time as this implicitly holds the RCU read lock. + +Should it be necessary to hold another task's credentials for a long period of +time, and possibly to sleep whilst doing so, then the caller should get a +reference on them using: + + const struct cred *get_task_cred(struct task_struct *task); + +This does all the RCU magic inside of it. The caller must call put_cred() on +the credentials so obtained when they're finished with. + +There are a couple of convenience functions to access bits of another task's +credentials, hiding the RCU magic from the caller: + + uid_t task_uid(task) Task's real UID + uid_t task_euid(task) Task's effective UID + +If the caller is holding a spinlock or the RCU read lock at the time anyway, +then: + + __task_cred(task)->uid + __task_cred(task)->euid + +should be used instead. Similarly, if multiple aspects of a task's credentials +need to be accessed, RCU read lock or a spinlock should be used, __task_cred() +called, the result stored in a temporary pointer and then the credential +aspects called from that before dropping the lock. This prevents the +potentially expensive RCU magic from being invoked multiple times. + +Should some other single aspect of another task's credentials need to be +accessed, then this can be used: + + task_cred_xxx(task, member) + +where 'member' is a non-pointer member of the cred struct. For instance: + + uid_t task_cred_xxx(task, suid); + +will retrieve 'struct cred::suid' from the task, doing the appropriate RCU +magic. This may not be used for pointer members as what they point to may +disappear the moment the RCU read lock is dropped. + + +ALTERING CREDENTIALS +-------------------- + +As previously mentioned, a task may only alter its own credentials, and may not +alter those of another task. This means that it doesn't need to use any +locking to alter its own credentials. + +To alter the current process's credentials, a function should first prepare a +new set of credentials by calling: + + struct cred *prepare_creds(void); + +this locks current->cred_replace_mutex and then allocates and constructs a +duplicate of the current process's credentials, returning with the mutex still +held if successful. It returns NULL if not successful (out of memory). + +The mutex prevents ptrace() from altering the ptrace state of a process whilst +security checks on credentials construction and changing is taking place as +the ptrace state may alter the outcome, particularly in the case of execve(). + +The new credentials set should be altered appropriately, and any security +checks and hooks done. Both the current and the proposed sets of credentials +are available for this purpose as current_cred() will return the current set +still at this point. + + +When the credential set is ready, it should be committed to the current process +by calling: + + int commit_creds(struct cred *new); + +This will alter various aspects of the credentials and the process, giving the +LSM a chance to do likewise, then it will use rcu_assign_pointer() to actually +commit the new credentials to current->cred, it will release +current->cred_replace_mutex to allow ptrace() to take place, and it will notify +the scheduler and others of the changes. + +This function is guaranteed to return 0, so that it can be tail-called at the +end of such functions as sys_setresuid(). + +Note that this function consumes the caller's reference to the new credentials. +The caller should _not_ call put_cred() on the new credentials afterwards. + +Furthermore, once this function has been called on a new set of credentials, +those credentials may _not_ be changed further. + + +Should the security checks fail or some other error occur after prepare_creds() +has been called, then the following function should be invoked: + + void abort_creds(struct cred *new); + +This releases the lock on current->cred_replace_mutex that prepare_creds() got +and then releases the new credentials. + + +A typical credentials alteration function would look something like this: + + int alter_suid(uid_t suid) + { + struct cred *new; + int ret; + + new = prepare_creds(); + if (!new) + return -ENOMEM; + + new->suid = suid; + ret = security_alter_suid(new); + if (ret < 0) { + abort_creds(new); + return ret; + } + + return commit_creds(new); + } + + +MANAGING CREDENTIALS +-------------------- + +There are some functions to help manage credentials: + + (*) void put_cred(const struct cred *cred); + + This releases a reference to the given set of credentials. If the + reference count reaches zero, the credentials will be scheduled for + destruction by the RCU system. + + (*) const struct cred *get_cred(const struct cred *cred); + + This gets a reference on a live set of credentials, returning a pointer to + that set of credentials. + + (*) struct cred *get_new_cred(struct cred *cred); + + This gets a reference on a set of credentials that is under construction + and is thus still mutable, returning a pointer to that set of credentials. + + +===================== +OPEN FILE CREDENTIALS +===================== + +When a new file is opened, a reference is obtained on the opening task's +credentials and this is attached to the file struct as 'f_cred' in place of +'f_uid' and 'f_gid'. Code that used to access file->f_uid and file->f_gid +should now access file->f_cred->fsuid and file->f_cred->fsgid. + +It is safe to access f_cred without the use of RCU or locking because the +pointer will not change over the lifetime of the file struct, and nor will the +contents of the cred struct pointed to, barring the exceptions listed above +(see the Task Credentials section). + + +======================================= +OVERRIDING THE VFS'S USE OF CREDENTIALS +======================================= + +Under some circumstances it is desirable to override the credentials used by +the VFS, and that can be done by calling into such as vfs_mkdir() with a +different set of credentials. This is done in the following places: + + (*) sys_faccessat(). + + (*) do_coredump(). + + (*) nfs4recover.c. |