Smack.rst 32.2 KB
Newer Older
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
1 2 3
=====
Smack
=====
4 5 6 7 8


    "Good for you, you've decided to clean the elevator!"
    - The Elevator, from Dark Star

Masanari Iida's avatar
Masanari Iida committed
9
Smack is the Simplified Mandatory Access Control Kernel.
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Smack is a kernel based implementation of mandatory access
control that includes simplicity in its primary design goals.

Smack is not the only Mandatory Access Control scheme
available for Linux. Those new to Mandatory Access Control
are encouraged to compare Smack with the other mechanisms
available to determine which is best suited to the problem
at hand.

Smack consists of three major components:
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
20

21
    - The kernel
22
    - Basic utilities, which are helpful but not required
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
    - Configuration data

The kernel component of Smack is implemented as a Linux
Security Modules (LSM) module. It requires netlabel and
works best with file systems that support extended attributes,
although xattr support is not strictly required.
It is safe to run a Smack kernel under a "vanilla" distribution.
30

31 32 33 34
Smack kernels use the CIPSO IP option. Some network
configurations are intolerant of IP options and can impede
access to systems that use them as Smack does.

35 36 37 38
Smack is used in the Tizen operating system. Please
go to http://wiki.tizen.org for information about how
Smack is used in Tizen.

39
The current git repository for Smack user space is:
40

41
	git://github.com/smack-team/smack.git
42

43
This should make and install on most modern distributions.
44
There are five commands included in smackutil:
45

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54
chsmack:
	display or set Smack extended attribute values

smackctl:
	load the Smack access rules

smackaccess:
	report if a process with one label has access
	to an object with another
55 56 57 58

These two commands are obsolete with the introduction of
the smackfs/load2 and smackfs/cipso2 interfaces.

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
59 60 61 62 63
smackload:
	properly formats data for writing to smackfs/load

smackcipso:
	properly formats data for writing to smackfs/cipso
64 65 66 67

In keeping with the intent of Smack, configuration data is
minimal and not strictly required. The most important
configuration step is mounting the smackfs pseudo filesystem.
68 69
If smackutil is installed the startup script will take care
of this, but it can be manually as well.
70

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
71
Add this line to ``/etc/fstab``::
72

73
    smackfs /sys/fs/smackfs smackfs defaults 0 0
74

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
75
The ``/sys/fs/smackfs`` directory is created by the kernel.
76

77 78
Smack uses extended attributes (xattrs) to store labels on filesystem
objects. The attributes are stored in the extended attribute security
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
79
name space. A process must have ``CAP_MAC_ADMIN`` to change any of these
80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87
attributes.

The extended attributes that Smack uses are:

SMACK64
	Used to make access control decisions. In almost all cases
	the label given to a new filesystem object will be the label
	of the process that created it.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
88

89 90 91
SMACK64EXEC
	The Smack label of a process that execs a program file with
	this attribute set will run with this attribute's value.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
92

93 94 95 96 97
SMACK64MMAP
	Don't allow the file to be mmapped by a process whose Smack
	label does not allow all of the access permitted to a process
	with the label contained in this attribute. This is a very
	specific use case for shared libraries.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
98

99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106
SMACK64TRANSMUTE
	Can only have the value "TRUE". If this attribute is present
	on a directory when an object is created in the directory and
	the Smack rule (more below) that permitted the write access
	to the directory includes the transmute ("t") mode the object
	gets the label of the directory instead of the label of the
	creating process. If the object being created is a directory
	the SMACK64TRANSMUTE attribute is set as well.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
107

108 109 110 111
SMACK64IPIN
	This attribute is only available on file descriptors for sockets.
	Use the Smack label in this attribute for access control
	decisions on packets being delivered to this socket.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
112

113 114 115 116 117
SMACK64IPOUT
	This attribute is only available on file descriptors for sockets.
	Use the Smack label in this attribute for access control
	decisions on packets coming from this socket.

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
118
There are multiple ways to set a Smack label on a file::
119 120

    # attr -S -s SMACK64 -V "value" path
121
    # chsmack -a value path
122

123
A process can see the Smack label it is running with by
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
124
reading ``/proc/self/attr/current``. A process with ``CAP_MAC_ADMIN``
125
can set the process Smack by writing there.
126 127

Most Smack configuration is accomplished by writing to files
128
in the smackfs filesystem. This pseudo-filesystem is mounted
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
129
on ``/sys/fs/smackfs``.
130 131

access
132 133
	Provided for backward compatibility. The access2 interface
	is preferred and should be used instead.
134 135 136 137 138 139
	This interface reports whether a subject with the specified
	Smack label has a particular access to an object with a
	specified Smack label. Write a fixed format access rule to
	this file. The next read will indicate whether the access
	would be permitted. The text will be either "1" indicating
	access, or "0" indicating denial.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
140

141 142 143 144 145 146 147
access2
	This interface reports whether a subject with the specified
	Smack label has a particular access to an object with a
	specified Smack label. Write a long format access rule to
	this file. The next read will indicate whether the access
	would be permitted. The text will be either "1" indicating
	access, or "0" indicating denial.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
148

149 150 151
ambient
	This contains the Smack label applied to unlabeled network
	packets.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
152

153 154
change-rule
	This interface allows modification of existing access control rules.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
155 156
	The format accepted on write is::

157
		"%s %s %s %s"
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
158

159 160 161 162 163 164 165
	where the first string is the subject label, the second the
	object label, the third the access to allow and the fourth the
	access to deny. The access strings may contain only the characters
	"rwxat-". If a rule for a given subject and object exists it will be
	modified by enabling the permissions in the third string and disabling
	those in the fourth string. If there is no such rule it will be
	created using the access specified in the third and the fourth strings.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
166

167
cipso
168 169
	Provided for backward compatibility. The cipso2 interface
	is preferred and should be used instead.
170
	This interface allows a specific CIPSO header to be assigned
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
171 172
	to a Smack label. The format accepted on write is::

173
		"%24s%4d%4d"["%4d"]...
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
174

175 176
	The first string is a fixed Smack label. The first number is
	the level to use. The second number is the number of categories.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
177 178 179 180
	The following numbers are the categories::

		"level-3-cats-5-19          3   2   5  19"

181 182
cipso2
	This interface allows a specific CIPSO header to be assigned
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
183 184 185 186
	to a Smack label. The format accepted on write is::

		"%s%4d%4d"["%4d"]...

187 188
	The first string is a long Smack label. The first number is
	the level to use. The second number is the number of categories.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
189 190 191 192
	The following numbers are the categories::

		"level-3-cats-5-19   3   2   5  19"

193 194 195
direct
	This contains the CIPSO level used for Smack direct label
	representation in network packets.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
196

197 198 199
doi
	This contains the CIPSO domain of interpretation used in
	network packets.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
200

201 202 203 204 205
ipv6host
	This interface allows specific IPv6 internet addresses to be
	treated as single label hosts. Packets are sent to single
	label hosts only from processes that have Smack write access
	to the host label. All packets received from single label hosts
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
206 207
	are given the specified label. The format accepted on write is::

208 209
		"%h:%h:%h:%h:%h:%h:%h:%h label" or
		"%h:%h:%h:%h:%h:%h:%h:%h/%d label".
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
210

211 212
	The "::" address shortcut is not supported.
	If label is "-DELETE" a matched entry will be deleted.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
213

214
load
215 216
	Provided for backward compatibility. The load2 interface
	is preferred and should be used instead.
217 218
	This interface allows access control rules in addition to
	the system defined rules to be specified. The format accepted
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
219 220
	on write is::

221
		"%24s%24s%5s"
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
222

223 224 225 226 227 228 229
	where the first string is the subject label, the second the
	object label, and the third the requested access. The access
	string may contain only the characters "rwxat-", and specifies
	which sort of access is allowed. The "-" is a placeholder for
	permissions that are not allowed. The string "r-x--" would
	specify read and execute access. Labels are limited to 23
	characters in length.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
230

231 232 233
load2
	This interface allows access control rules in addition to
	the system defined rules to be specified. The format accepted
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
234 235
	on write is::

236
		"%s %s %s"
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
237

238 239 240 241 242 243
	where the first string is the subject label, the second the
	object label, and the third the requested access. The access
	string may contain only the characters "rwxat-", and specifies
	which sort of access is allowed. The "-" is a placeholder for
	permissions that are not allowed. The string "r-x--" would
	specify read and execute access.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
244

245
load-self
246 247
	Provided for backward compatibility. The load-self2 interface
	is preferred and should be used instead.
248 249 250 251 252
	This interface allows process specific access rules to be
	defined. These rules are only consulted if access would
	otherwise be permitted, and are intended to provide additional
	restrictions on the process. The format is the same as for
	the load interface.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
253

254 255 256 257 258 259
load-self2
	This interface allows process specific access rules to be
	defined. These rules are only consulted if access would
	otherwise be permitted, and are intended to provide additional
	restrictions on the process. The format is the same as for
	the load2 interface.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
260

261 262
logging
	This contains the Smack logging state.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
263

264 265 266
mapped
	This contains the CIPSO level used for Smack mapped label
	representation in network packets.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
267

268 269 270 271 272 273
netlabel
	This interface allows specific internet addresses to be
	treated as single label hosts. Packets are sent to single
	label hosts without CIPSO headers, but only from processes
	that have Smack write access to the host label. All packets
	received from single label hosts are given the specified
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
274 275
	label. The format accepted on write is::

276
		"%d.%d.%d.%d label" or "%d.%d.%d.%d/%d label".
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
277

278 279
	If the label specified is "-CIPSO" the address is treated
	as a host that supports CIPSO headers.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
280

281
onlycap
282
	This contains labels processes must have for CAP_MAC_ADMIN
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
283
	and ``CAP_MAC_OVERRIDE`` to be effective. If this file is empty
284
	these capabilities are effective at for processes with any
285 286
	label. The values are set by writing the desired labels, separated
	by spaces, to the file or cleared by writing "-" to the file.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
287

288 289
ptrace
	This is used to define the current ptrace policy
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297

	0 - default:
	    this is the policy that relies on Smack access rules.
	    For the ``PTRACE_READ`` a subject needs to have a read access on
	    object. For the ``PTRACE_ATTACH`` a read-write access is required.

	1 - exact:
	    this is the policy that limits ``PTRACE_ATTACH``. Attach is
298
	    only allowed when subject's and object's labels are equal.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
299 300 301 302 303 304
	    ``PTRACE_READ`` is not affected. Can be overridden with ``CAP_SYS_PTRACE``.

	2 - draconian:
	    this policy behaves like the 'exact' above with an
	    exception that it can't be overridden with ``CAP_SYS_PTRACE``.

305 306 307
revoke-subject
	Writing a Smack label here sets the access to '-' for all access
	rules with that subject label.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
308

309
unconfined
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
310 311
	If the kernel is configured with ``CONFIG_SECURITY_SMACK_BRINGUP``
	a process with ``CAP_MAC_ADMIN`` can write a label into this interface.
312 313 314 315
	Thereafter, accesses that involve that label will be logged and
	the access permitted if it wouldn't be otherwise. Note that this
	is dangerous and can ruin the proper labeling of your system.
	It should never be used in production.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
316

317 318
relabel-self
	This interface contains a list of labels to which the process can
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
319
	transition to, by writing to ``/proc/self/attr/current``.
320
	Normally a process can change its own label to any legal value, but only
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
321 322 323
	if it has ``CAP_MAC_ADMIN``. This interface allows a process without
	``CAP_MAC_ADMIN`` to relabel itself to one of labels from predefined list.
	A process without ``CAP_MAC_ADMIN`` can change its label only once. When it
324 325 326
	does, this list will be cleared.
	The values are set by writing the desired labels, separated
	by spaces, to the file or cleared by writing "-" to the file.
327

328
If you are using the smackload utility
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
329
you can add access rules in ``/etc/smack/accesses``. They take the form::
330 331 332

    subjectlabel objectlabel access

333
access is a combination of the letters rwxatb which specify the
334 335 336 337 338
kind of access permitted a subject with subjectlabel on an
object with objectlabel. If there is no rule no access is allowed.

Look for additional programs on http://schaufler-ca.com

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
339 340
The Simplified Mandatory Access Control Kernel (Whitepaper)
===========================================================
341 342 343 344 345

Casey Schaufler
casey@schaufler-ca.com

Mandatory Access Control
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
346
------------------------
347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358

Computer systems employ a variety of schemes to constrain how information is
shared among the people and services using the machine. Some of these schemes
allow the program or user to decide what other programs or users are allowed
access to pieces of data. These schemes are called discretionary access
control mechanisms because the access control is specified at the discretion
of the user. Other schemes do not leave the decision regarding what a user or
program can access up to users or programs. These schemes are called mandatory
access control mechanisms because you don't have a choice regarding the users
or programs that have access to pieces of data.

Bell & LaPadula
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
359
---------------
360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368

From the middle of the 1980's until the turn of the century Mandatory Access
Control (MAC) was very closely associated with the Bell & LaPadula security
model, a mathematical description of the United States Department of Defense
policy for marking paper documents. MAC in this form enjoyed a following
within the Capital Beltway and Scandinavian supercomputer centers but was
often sited as failing to address general needs.

Domain Type Enforcement
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
369
-----------------------
370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379

Around the turn of the century Domain Type Enforcement (DTE) became popular.
This scheme organizes users, programs, and data into domains that are
protected from each other. This scheme has been widely deployed as a component
of popular Linux distributions. The administrative overhead required to
maintain this scheme and the detailed understanding of the whole system
necessary to provide a secure domain mapping leads to the scheme being
disabled or used in limited ways in the majority of cases.

Smack
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
380
-----
381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390

Smack is a Mandatory Access Control mechanism designed to provide useful MAC
while avoiding the pitfalls of its predecessors. The limitations of Bell &
LaPadula are addressed by providing a scheme whereby access can be controlled
according to the requirements of the system and its purpose rather than those
imposed by an arcane government policy. The complexity of Domain Type
Enforcement and avoided by defining access controls in terms of the access
modes already in use.

Smack Terminology
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
391
-----------------
392 393 394 395 396 397

The jargon used to talk about Smack will be familiar to those who have dealt
with other MAC systems and shouldn't be too difficult for the uninitiated to
pick up. There are four terms that are used in a specific way and that are
especially important:

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
398 399
  Subject:
	A subject is an active entity on the computer system.
400 401 402
	On Smack a subject is a task, which is in turn the basic unit
	of execution.

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
403 404
  Object:
	An object is a passive entity on the computer system.
405 406
	On Smack files of all types, IPC, and tasks can be objects.

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
407 408
  Access:
	Any attempt by a subject to put information into or get
409 410
	information from an object is an access.

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
411 412
  Label:
	Data that identifies the Mandatory Access Control
413 414 415 416 417
	characteristics of a subject or an object.

These definitions are consistent with the traditional use in the security
community. There are also some terms from Linux that are likely to crop up:

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
418 419
  Capability:
	A task that possesses a capability has permission to
420 421 422 423 424
	violate an aspect of the system security policy, as identified by
	the specific capability. A task that possesses one or more
	capabilities is a privileged task, whereas a task with no
	capabilities is an unprivileged task.

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
425 426
  Privilege:
	A task that is allowed to violate the system security
427 428 429 430 431
	policy is said to have privilege. As of this writing a task can
	have privilege either by possessing capabilities or by having an
	effective user of root.

Smack Basics
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
432
------------
433 434 435 436 437 438

Smack is an extension to a Linux system. It enforces additional restrictions
on what subjects can access which objects, based on the labels attached to
each of the subject and the object.

Labels
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
439
~~~~~~
440

441 442 443
Smack labels are ASCII character strings. They can be up to 255 characters
long, but keeping them to twenty-three characters is recommended.
Single character labels using special characters, that being anything
444 445 446
other than a letter or digit, are reserved for use by the Smack development
team. Smack labels are unstructured, case sensitive, and the only operation
ever performed on them is comparison for equality. Smack labels cannot
Etienne Basset's avatar
Etienne Basset committed
447 448
contain unprintable characters, the "/" (slash), the "\" (backslash), the "'"
(quote) and '"' (double-quote) characters.
449
Smack labels cannot begin with a '-'. This is reserved for special options.
450

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
451
There are some predefined labels::
452

453 454 455 456
	_ 	Pronounced "floor", a single underscore character.
	^ 	Pronounced "hat", a single circumflex character.
	* 	Pronounced "star", a single asterisk character.
	? 	Pronounced "huh", a single question mark character.
457
	@ 	Pronounced "web", a single at sign character.
458

459 460 461
Every task on a Smack system is assigned a label. The Smack label
of a process will usually be assigned by the system initialization
mechanism.
462 463

Access Rules
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
464
~~~~~~~~~~~~
465 466 467 468 469

Smack uses the traditional access modes of Linux. These modes are read,
execute, write, and occasionally append. There are a few cases where the
access mode may not be obvious. These include:

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
470 471
  Signals:
	A signal is a write operation from the subject task to
472
	the object task.
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
473 474 475

  Internet Domain IPC:
	Transmission of a packet is considered a
476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494
	write operation from the source task to the destination task.

Smack restricts access based on the label attached to a subject and the label
attached to the object it is trying to access. The rules enforced are, in
order:

	1. Any access requested by a task labeled "*" is denied.
	2. A read or execute access requested by a task labeled "^"
	   is permitted.
	3. A read or execute access requested on an object labeled "_"
	   is permitted.
	4. Any access requested on an object labeled "*" is permitted.
	5. Any access requested by a task on an object with the same
	   label is permitted.
	6. Any access requested that is explicitly defined in the loaded
	   rule set is permitted.
	7. Any other access is denied.

Smack Access Rules
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
495
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505

With the isolation provided by Smack access separation is simple. There are
many interesting cases where limited access by subjects to objects with
different labels is desired. One example is the familiar spy model of
sensitivity, where a scientist working on a highly classified project would be
able to read documents of lower classifications and anything she writes will
be "born" highly classified. To accommodate such schemes Smack includes a
mechanism for specifying rules allowing access between labels.

Access Rule Format
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
506
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
507

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
508
The format of an access rule is::
509 510 511 512 513

	subject-label object-label access

Where subject-label is the Smack label of the task, object-label is the Smack
label of the thing being accessed, and access is a string specifying the sort
514 515
of access allowed. The access specification is searched for letters that
describe access modes:
516 517 518 519 520

	a: indicates that append access should be granted.
	r: indicates that read access should be granted.
	w: indicates that write access should be granted.
	x: indicates that execute access should be granted.
521
	t: indicates that the rule requests transmutation.
522
	b: indicates that the rule should be reported for bring-up.
523 524 525

Uppercase values for the specification letters are allowed as well.
Access mode specifications can be in any order. Examples of acceptable rules
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
526
are::
527 528 529 530 531

	TopSecret Secret  rx
	Secret    Unclass R
	Manager   Game    x
	User      HR      w
532
	Snap      Crackle rwxatb
533 534 535
	New       Old     rRrRr
	Closed    Off     -

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
536
Examples of unacceptable rules are::
537 538 539 540 541 542 543

	Top Secret Secret     rx
	Ace        Ace        r
	Odd        spells     waxbeans

Spaces are not allowed in labels. Since a subject always has access to files
with the same label specifying a rule for that case is pointless. Only
544
valid letters (rwxatbRWXATB) and the dash ('-') character are allowed in
545 546 547 548
access specifications. The dash is a placeholder, so "a-r" is the same
as "ar". A lone dash is used to specify that no access should be allowed.

Applying Access Rules
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
549
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568

The developers of Linux rarely define new sorts of things, usually importing
schemes and concepts from other systems. Most often, the other systems are
variants of Unix. Unix has many endearing properties, but consistency of
access control models is not one of them. Smack strives to treat accesses as
uniformly as is sensible while keeping with the spirit of the underlying
mechanism.

File system objects including files, directories, named pipes, symbolic links,
and devices require access permissions that closely match those used by mode
bit access. To open a file for reading read access is required on the file. To
search a directory requires execute access. Creating a file with write access
requires both read and write access on the containing directory. Deleting a
file requires read and write access to the file and to the containing
directory. It is possible that a user may be able to see that a file exists
but not any of its attributes by the circumstance of having read access to the
containing directory but not to the differently labeled file. This is an
artifact of the file name being data in the directory, not a part of the file.

569 570 571 572 573 574 575
If a directory is marked as transmuting (SMACK64TRANSMUTE=TRUE) and the
access rule that allows a process to create an object in that directory
includes 't' access the label assigned to the new object will be that
of the directory, not the creating process. This makes it much easier
for two processes with different labels to share data without granting
access to all of their files.

576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591
IPC objects, message queues, semaphore sets, and memory segments exist in flat
namespaces and access requests are only required to match the object in
question.

Process objects reflect tasks on the system and the Smack label used to access
them is the same Smack label that the task would use for its own access
attempts. Sending a signal via the kill() system call is a write operation
from the signaler to the recipient. Debugging a process requires both reading
and writing. Creating a new task is an internal operation that results in two
tasks with identical Smack labels and requires no access checks.

Sockets are data structures attached to processes and sending a packet from
one process to another requires that the sender have write access to the
receiver. The receiver is not required to have read access to the sender.

Setting Access Rules
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
592
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
593 594

The configuration file /etc/smack/accesses contains the rules to be set at
595 596 597 598 599
system startup. The contents are written to the special file
/sys/fs/smackfs/load2. Rules can be added at any time and take effect
immediately. For any pair of subject and object labels there can be only
one rule, with the most recently specified overriding any earlier
specification.
600 601

Task Attribute
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
602
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
603 604 605 606 607 608 609

The Smack label of a process can be read from /proc/<pid>/attr/current. A
process can read its own Smack label from /proc/self/attr/current. A
privileged process can change its own Smack label by writing to
/proc/self/attr/current but not the label of another process.

File Attribute
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
610
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
611 612 613 614 615 616

The Smack label of a filesystem object is stored as an extended attribute
named SMACK64 on the file. This attribute is in the security namespace. It can
only be changed by a process with privilege.

Privilege
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
617
~~~~~~~~~
618

619 620 621 622
A process with CAP_MAC_OVERRIDE or CAP_MAC_ADMIN is privileged.
CAP_MAC_OVERRIDE allows the process access to objects it would
be denied otherwise. CAP_MAC_ADMIN allows a process to change
Smack data, including rules and attributes.
623 624

Smack Networking
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
625
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636

As mentioned before, Smack enforces access control on network protocol
transmissions. Every packet sent by a Smack process is tagged with its Smack
label. This is done by adding a CIPSO tag to the header of the IP packet. Each
packet received is expected to have a CIPSO tag that identifies the label and
if it lacks such a tag the network ambient label is assumed. Before the packet
is delivered a check is made to determine that a subject with the label on the
packet has write access to the receiving process and if that is not the case
the packet is dropped.

CIPSO Configuration
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
637
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645

It is normally unnecessary to specify the CIPSO configuration. The default
values used by the system handle all internal cases. Smack will compose CIPSO
label values to match the Smack labels being used without administrative
intervention. Unlabeled packets that come into the system will be given the
ambient label.

Smack requires configuration in the case where packets from a system that is
646
not Smack that speaks CIPSO may be encountered. Usually this will be a Trusted
647 648 649 650
Solaris system, but there are other, less widely deployed systems out there.
CIPSO provides 3 important values, a Domain Of Interpretation (DOI), a level,
and a category set with each packet. The DOI is intended to identify a group
of systems that use compatible labeling schemes, and the DOI specified on the
651 652 653
Smack system must match that of the remote system or packets will be
discarded. The DOI is 3 by default. The value can be read from
/sys/fs/smackfs/doi and can be changed by writing to /sys/fs/smackfs/doi.
654 655 656 657

The label and category set are mapped to a Smack label as defined in
/etc/smack/cipso.

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
658
A Smack/CIPSO mapping has the form::
659 660 661 662 663

	smack level [category [category]*]

Smack does not expect the level or category sets to be related in any
particular way and does not assume or assign accesses based on them. Some
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
664
examples of mappings::
665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674

	TopSecret 7
	TS:A,B    7 1 2
	SecBDE    5 2 4 6
	RAFTERS   7 12 26

The ":" and "," characters are permitted in a Smack label but have no special
meaning.

The mapping of Smack labels to CIPSO values is defined by writing to
675
/sys/fs/smackfs/cipso2.
676 677 678 679

In addition to explicit mappings Smack supports direct CIPSO mappings. One
CIPSO level is used to indicate that the category set passed in the packet is
in fact an encoding of the Smack label. The level used is 250 by default. The
680 681
value can be read from /sys/fs/smackfs/direct and changed by writing to
/sys/fs/smackfs/direct.
682 683

Socket Attributes
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
684
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
685 686 687 688 689

There are two attributes that are associated with sockets. These attributes
can only be set by privileged tasks, but any task can read them for their own
sockets.

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
690 691
  SMACK64IPIN:
	The Smack label of the task object. A privileged
692 693
	program that will enforce policy may set this to the star label.

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
694 695
  SMACK64IPOUT:
	The Smack label transmitted with outgoing packets.
696 697 698
	A privileged program may set this to match the label of another
	task with which it hopes to communicate.

699
Smack Netlabel Exceptions
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
700
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
701 702

You will often find that your labeled application has to talk to the outside,
703
unlabeled world. To do this there's a special file /sys/fs/smackfs/netlabel
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
704 705 706 707
where you can add some exceptions in the form of::

	@IP1	   LABEL1 or
	@IP2/MASK  LABEL2
708 709 710 711 712

It means that your application will have unlabeled access to @IP1 if it has
write access on LABEL1, and access to the subnet @IP2/MASK if it has write
access on LABEL2.

713 714
Entries in the /sys/fs/smackfs/netlabel file are matched by longest mask
first, like in classless IPv4 routing.
715

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
716
A special label '@' and an option '-CIPSO' can be used there::
717

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
718 719 720 721 722 723 724
	@      means Internet, any application with any label has access to it
	-CIPSO means standard CIPSO networking

If you don't know what CIPSO is and don't plan to use it, you can just do::

	echo 127.0.0.1 -CIPSO > /sys/fs/smackfs/netlabel
	echo 0.0.0.0/0 @      > /sys/fs/smackfs/netlabel
725 726

If you use CIPSO on your 192.168.0.0/16 local network and need also unlabeled
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
727
Internet access, you can have::
728

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
729 730 731
	echo 127.0.0.1      -CIPSO > /sys/fs/smackfs/netlabel
	echo 192.168.0.0/16 -CIPSO > /sys/fs/smackfs/netlabel
	echo 0.0.0.0/0      @      > /sys/fs/smackfs/netlabel
732

733
Writing Applications for Smack
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
734
------------------------------
735 736 737 738 739 740

There are three sorts of applications that will run on a Smack system. How an
application interacts with Smack will determine what it will have to do to
work properly under Smack.

Smack Ignorant Applications
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
741
---------------------------
742 743 744 745 746 747 748

By far the majority of applications have no reason whatever to care about the
unique properties of Smack. Since invoking a program has no impact on the
Smack label associated with the process the only concern likely to arise is
whether the process has execute access to the program.

Smack Relevant Applications
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
749
---------------------------
750 751 752 753 754 755

Some programs can be improved by teaching them about Smack, but do not make
any security decisions themselves. The utility ls(1) is one example of such a
program.

Smack Enforcing Applications
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
756
----------------------------
757 758 759 760 761 762 763

These are special programs that not only know about Smack, but participate in
the enforcement of system policy. In most cases these are the programs that
set up user sessions. There are also network services that provide information
to processes running with various labels.

File System Interfaces
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
764
----------------------
765 766 767

Smack maintains labels on file system objects using extended attributes. The
Smack label of a file, directory, or other file system object can be obtained
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
768
using getxattr(2)::
769 770 771 772

	len = getxattr("/", "security.SMACK64", value, sizeof (value));

will put the Smack label of the root directory into value. A privileged
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
773
process can set the Smack label of a file system object with setxattr(2)::
774 775 776 777 778 779 780 781

	len = strlen("Rubble");
	rc = setxattr("/foo", "security.SMACK64", "Rubble", len, 0);

will set the Smack label of /foo to "Rubble" if the program has appropriate
privilege.

Socket Interfaces
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
782
-----------------
783 784 785 786

The socket attributes can be read using fgetxattr(2).

A privileged process can set the Smack label of outgoing packets with
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
787
fsetxattr(2)::
788 789 790 791 792

	len = strlen("Rubble");
	rc = fsetxattr(fd, "security.SMACK64IPOUT", "Rubble", len, 0);

will set the Smack label "Rubble" on packets going out from the socket if the
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
793
program has appropriate privilege::
794 795 796 797 798 799 800

	rc = fsetxattr(fd, "security.SMACK64IPIN, "*", strlen("*"), 0);

will set the Smack label "*" as the object label against which incoming
packets will be checked if the program has appropriate privilege.

Administration
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
801
--------------
802 803 804

Smack supports some mount options:

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
805 806
  smackfsdef=label:
	specifies the label to give files that lack
807 808
	the Smack label extended attribute.

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
809 810
  smackfsroot=label:
	specifies the label to assign the root of the
811 812
	file system if it lacks the Smack extended attribute.

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
813 814
  smackfshat=label:
	specifies a label that must have read access to
815 816
	all labels set on the filesystem. Not yet enforced.

Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
817 818
  smackfsfloor=label:
	specifies a label to which all labels set on the
819 820
	filesystem must have read access. Not yet enforced.

José Bollo's avatar
José Bollo committed
821 822 823 824
  smackfstransmute=label:
	behaves exactly like smackfsroot except that it also
	sets the transmute flag on the root of the mount

825 826
These mount options apply to all file system types.

Etienne Basset's avatar
Etienne Basset committed
827
Smack auditing
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
828
--------------
Etienne Basset's avatar
Etienne Basset committed
829 830 831 832

If you want Smack auditing of security events, you need to set CONFIG_AUDIT
in your kernel configuration.
By default, all denied events will be audited. You can change this behavior by
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
833 834 835 836 837 838
writing a single character to the /sys/fs/smackfs/logging file::

	0 : no logging
	1 : log denied (default)
	2 : log accepted
	3 : log denied & accepted
Etienne Basset's avatar
Etienne Basset committed
839 840

Events are logged as 'key=value' pairs, for each event you at least will get
841
the subject, the object, the rights requested, the action, the kernel function
Etienne Basset's avatar
Etienne Basset committed
842 843
that triggered the event, plus other pairs depending on the type of event
audited.
844 845

Bringup Mode
Kees Cook's avatar
Kees Cook committed
846
------------
847 848 849 850 851 852 853 854 855 856 857 858 859 860 861

Bringup mode provides logging features that can make application
configuration and system bringup easier. Configure the kernel with
CONFIG_SECURITY_SMACK_BRINGUP to enable these features. When bringup
mode is enabled accesses that succeed due to rules marked with the "b"
access mode will logged. When a new label is introduced for processes
rules can be added aggressively, marked with the "b". The logging allows
tracking of which rules actual get used for that label.

Another feature of bringup mode is the "unconfined" option. Writing
a label to /sys/fs/smackfs/unconfined makes subjects with that label
able to access any object, and objects with that label accessible to
all subjects. Any access that is granted because a label is unconfined
is logged. This feature is dangerous, as files and directories may
be created in places they couldn't if the policy were being enforced.