I have vehemently opposed adding a "permissive" mode to Smack
for the simple reasons that it would be subject to massive abuse
and that developers refuse to turn it off come product release.
I still believe that this is true, and still refuse to add a
general "permissive mode". So don't ask again.
Bumjin Im suggested an approach that addresses most of the concerns,
and I have implemented it here. I still believe that we'd be better
off without this sort of thing, but it looks like this minimizes the
abuse potential.
Firstly, you have to configure Smack Bringup Mode. That allows
for "release" software to be ammune from abuse. Second, only one
label gets to be "permissive" at a time. You can use it for
debugging, but that's about it.
A label written to smackfs/unconfined is treated specially.
If either the subject or object label of an access check
matches the "unconfined" label, and the access would not
have been allowed otherwise an audit record and a console
message are generated. The audit record "request" string is
marked with either "(US)" or "(UO)", to indicate that the
request was granted because of an unconfined label. The
fact that an inode was accessed by an unconfined label is
remembered, and subsequent accesses to that "impure"
object are noted in the log. The impurity is not stored in
the filesystem, so a file mislabled as a side effect of
using an unconfined label may still cause concern after
a reboot.
So, it's there, it's dangerous, but so many application
developers seem incapable of living without it I have
given in. I've tried to make it as safe as I can, but
in the end it's still a chain saw.
Signed-off-by: Casey Schaufler <casey@schaufler-ca.com>
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