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diff --git a/Documentation/security/landlock.rst b/Documentation/security/landlock.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..c0029d5d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/security/landlock.rst @@ -0,0 +1,101 @@ +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 +.. Copyright © 2017-2020 Mickaël Salaün <mic@digikod.net> +.. Copyright © 2019-2020 ANSSI + +================================== +Landlock LSM: kernel documentation +================================== + +:Author: Mickaël Salaün +:Date: September 2022 + +Landlock's goal is to create scoped access-control (i.e. sandboxing). To +harden a whole system, this feature should be available to any process, +including unprivileged ones. Because such process may be compromised or +backdoored (i.e. untrusted), Landlock's features must be safe to use from the +kernel and other processes point of view. Landlock's interface must therefore +expose a minimal attack surface. + +Landlock is designed to be usable by unprivileged processes while following the +system security policy enforced by other access control mechanisms (e.g. DAC, +LSM). Indeed, a Landlock rule shall not interfere with other access-controls +enforced on the system, only add more restrictions. + +Any user can enforce Landlock rulesets on their processes. They are merged and +evaluated according to the inherited ones in a way that ensures that only more +constraints can be added. + +User space documentation can be found here: +Documentation/userspace-api/landlock.rst. + +Guiding principles for safe access controls +=========================================== + +* A Landlock rule shall be focused on access control on kernel objects instead + of syscall filtering (i.e. syscall arguments), which is the purpose of + seccomp-bpf. +* To avoid multiple kinds of side-channel attacks (e.g. leak of security + policies, CPU-based attacks), Landlock rules shall not be able to + programmatically communicate with user space. +* Kernel access check shall not slow down access request from unsandboxed + processes. +* Computation related to Landlock operations (e.g. enforcing a ruleset) shall + only impact the processes requesting them. + +Design choices +============== + +Filesystem access rights +------------------------ + +All access rights are tied to an inode and what can be accessed through it. +Reading the content of a directory does not imply to be allowed to read the +content of a listed inode. Indeed, a file name is local to its parent +directory, and an inode can be referenced by multiple file names thanks to +(hard) links. Being able to unlink a file only has a direct impact on the +directory, not the unlinked inode. This is the reason why +``LANDLOCK_ACCESS_FS_REMOVE_FILE`` or ``LANDLOCK_ACCESS_FS_REFER`` are not +allowed to be tied to files but only to directories. + +Tests +===== + +Userspace tests for backward compatibility, ptrace restrictions and filesystem +support can be found here: `tools/testing/selftests/landlock/`_. + +Kernel structures +================= + +Object +------ + +.. kernel-doc:: security/landlock/object.h + :identifiers: + +Filesystem +---------- + +.. kernel-doc:: security/landlock/fs.h + :identifiers: + +Ruleset and domain +------------------ + +A domain is a read-only ruleset tied to a set of subjects (i.e. tasks' +credentials). Each time a ruleset is enforced on a task, the current domain is +duplicated and the ruleset is imported as a new layer of rules in the new +domain. Indeed, once in a domain, each rule is tied to a layer level. To +grant access to an object, at least one rule of each layer must allow the +requested action on the object. A task can then only transit to a new domain +that is the intersection of the constraints from the current domain and those +of a ruleset provided by the task. + +The definition of a subject is implicit for a task sandboxing itself, which +makes the reasoning much easier and helps avoid pitfalls. + +.. kernel-doc:: security/landlock/ruleset.h + :identifiers: + +.. Links +.. _tools/testing/selftests/landlock/: + https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/tree/tools/testing/selftests/landlock/ |