User namespaces are an effective tool to allow programs to run with
permission without requiring the need for a program to run as root. User
namespaces may also be used as a sandboxing technique. However, attackers
sometimes leverage user namespaces as an initial attack vector to perform
some exploit. [1,2,3]
While it is not the unprivileged user namespace functionality, which
causes the kernel to be exploitable, users/administrators might want to
more granularly limit or at least monitor how various processes use this
functionality, while vulnerable kernel subsystems are being patched.
Preventing user namespace already creation comes in a few of forms in
order of granularity:
1. /proc/sys/user/max_user_namespaces sysctl
2. Distro specific patch(es)
3. CONFIG_USER_NS
To block a task based on its attributes, the LSM hook cred_prepare is a
decent candidate for use because it provides more granular control, and
it is called before create_user_ns():
cred = prepare_creds()
security_prepare_creds()
call_int_hook(cred_prepare, ...
if (cred)
create_user_ns(cred)
Since security_prepare_creds() is meant for LSMs to copy and prepare
credentials, access control is an unintended use of the hook. [4]
Further, security_prepare_creds() will always return a ENOMEM if the
hook returns any non-zero error code.
This hook also does not handle the clone3 case which requires us to
access a user space pointer to know if we're in the CLONE_NEW_USER
call path which may be subject to a TOCTTOU attack.
Lastly, cred_prepare is called in many call paths, and a targeted hook
further limits the frequency of calls which is a beneficial outcome.
Therefore introduce a new function security_create_user_ns() with an
accompanying userns_create LSM hook.
With the new userns_create hook, users will have more control over the
observability and access control over user namespace creation. Users
should expect that normal operation of user namespaces will behave as
usual, and only be impacted when controls are implemented by users or
administrators.
This hook takes the prepared creds for LSM authors to write policy
against. On success, the new namespace is applied to credentials,
otherwise an error is returned.
Links:
1. https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-0492
2. https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-25636
3. https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-34918
4. https://lore.kernel.org/all/1c4b1c0d-12f6-6e9e-a6a3-cdce7418110c@schaufler-ca.com/
Reviewed-by: Christian Brauner (Microsoft) <brauner@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: KP Singh <kpsingh@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Frederick Lawler <fred@cloudflare.com>
Signed-off-by: Paul Moore <paul@paul-moore.com>
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