From 3399bca4514b5c8d513a88fa3e472756468cb4c6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: =?UTF-8?q?Daniel=20P=2E=20Berrang=C3=A9?= Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2021 13:04:27 +0100 Subject: docs: describe the security considerations with virtiofsd xattr mapping MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Different guest xattr prefixes have distinct access control rules applied by the guest. When remapping a guest xattr care must be taken that the remapping does not allow the a guest user to bypass guest kernel access control rules. For example if 'trusted.*' which requires CAP_SYS_ADMIN is remapped to 'user.virtiofs.trusted.*', an unprivileged guest user which can write to 'user.*' can bypass the CAP_SYS_ADMIN control. Thus the target of any remapping must be explicitly blocked from read/writes by the guest, to prevent access control bypass. The examples shown in the virtiofsd man page already do the right thing and ensure safety, but the security implications of getting this wrong were not made explicit. This could lead to host admins and apps unwittingly creating insecure configurations. Signed-off-by: Daniel P. Berrangé Message-Id: <20210611120427.49736-1-berrange@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Dr. David Alan Gilbert Signed-off-by: Dr. David Alan Gilbert --- docs/tools/virtiofsd.rst | 55 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----- 1 file changed, 50 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) (limited to 'docs/tools') diff --git a/docs/tools/virtiofsd.rst b/docs/tools/virtiofsd.rst index 4911e79..a6c3502 100644 --- a/docs/tools/virtiofsd.rst +++ b/docs/tools/virtiofsd.rst @@ -127,8 +127,8 @@ Options timeout. ``always`` sets a long cache lifetime at the expense of coherency. The default is ``auto``. -xattr-mapping -------------- +Extended attribute (xattr) mapping +---------------------------------- By default the name of xattr's used by the client are passed through to the server file system. This can be a problem where either those xattr names are used @@ -136,6 +136,9 @@ by something on the server (e.g. selinux client/server confusion) or if the virtiofsd is running in a container with restricted privileges where it cannot access some attributes. +Mapping syntax +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + A mapping of xattr names can be made using -o xattrmap=mapping where the ``mapping`` string consists of a series of rules. @@ -232,8 +235,48 @@ Note: When the 'security.capability' xattr is remapped, the daemon has to do extra work to remove it during many operations, which the host kernel normally does itself. -xattr-mapping Examples ----------------------- +Security considerations +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +Operating systems typically partition the xattr namespace using +well defined name prefixes. Each partition may have different +access controls applied. For example, on Linux there are multiple +partitions + + * ``system.*`` - access varies depending on attribute & filesystem + * ``security.*`` - only processes with CAP_SYS_ADMIN + * ``trusted.*`` - only processes with CAP_SYS_ADMIN + * ``user.*`` - any process granted by file permissions / ownership + +While other OS such as FreeBSD have different name prefixes +and access control rules. + +When remapping attributes on the host, it is important to +ensure that the remapping does not allow a guest user to +evade the guest access control rules. + +Consider if ``trusted.*`` from the guest was remapped to +``user.virtiofs.trusted*`` in the host. An unprivileged +user in a Linux guest has the ability to write to xattrs +under ``user.*``. Thus the user can evade the access +control restriction on ``trusted.*`` by instead writing +to ``user.virtiofs.trusted.*``. + +As noted above, the partitions used and access controls +applied, will vary across guest OS, so it is not wise to +try to predict what the guest OS will use. + +The simplest way to avoid an insecure configuration is +to remap all xattrs at once, to a given fixed prefix. +This is shown in example (1) below. + +If selectively mapping only a subset of xattr prefixes, +then rules must be added to explicitly block direct +access to the target of the remapping. This is shown +in example (2) below. + +Mapping examples +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1) Prefix all attributes with 'user.virtiofs.' @@ -271,7 +314,9 @@ stripping of 'user.virtiofs.'. The second rule hides unprefixed 'trusted.' attributes on the host. The third rule stops a guest from explicitly setting -the 'user.virtiofs.' path directly. +the 'user.virtiofs.' path directly to prevent access +control bypass on the target of the earlier prefix +remapping. Finally, the fourth rule lets all remaining attributes through. -- cgit v1.1 From 65a820d292622fd2c3e1e5cd49455adc7f90faf0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Vivek Goyal Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2021 11:08:52 -0400 Subject: virtiofsd: Add an option to enable/disable posix acls fuse has an option FUSE_POSIX_ACL which needs to be opted in by fuse server to enable posix acls. As of now we are not opting in for this, so posix acls are disabled on virtiofs by default. Add virtiofsd option "-o posix_acl/no_posix_acl" to let users enable/disable posix acl support. By default it is disabled as of now due to performance concerns with cache=none. Currently even if file server has not opted in for FUSE_POSIX_ACL, user can still query acl and set acl, and system.posix_acl_access and system.posix_acl_default xattrs show up listxattr response. Miklos said this is confusing. So he said lets block and filter system.posix_acl_access and system.posix_acl_default xattrs in getxattr/setxattr/listxattr if user has explicitly disabled posix acls using -o no_posix_acl. As of now continuing to keeping the existing behavior if user did not specify any option to disable acl support due to concerns about backward compatibility. Signed-off-by: Vivek Goyal Message-Id: <20210622150852.1507204-8-vgoyal@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Dr. David Alan Gilbert Signed-off-by: Dr. David Alan Gilbert --- docs/tools/virtiofsd.rst | 3 +++ 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+) (limited to 'docs/tools') diff --git a/docs/tools/virtiofsd.rst b/docs/tools/virtiofsd.rst index a6c3502..c4ac7fd 100644 --- a/docs/tools/virtiofsd.rst +++ b/docs/tools/virtiofsd.rst @@ -101,6 +101,9 @@ Options Enable/disable extended attributes (xattr) on files and directories. The default is ``no_xattr``. + * posix_acl|no_posix_acl - + Enable/disable posix acl support. Posix ACLs are disabled by default`. + .. option:: --socket-path=PATH Listen on vhost-user UNIX domain socket at PATH. -- cgit v1.1