Re: [RFC PATCH] selinux: Add denied trace with permssion filter

[peter enderborg <peter.enderborg@sony.com>]

On 9/1/20 5:31 PM, Paul Moore wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 31, 2020 at 11:34 AM peter enderborg wrote:
>> On 8/31/20 4:16 PM, Paul Moore wrote:
>>> On Thu, Aug 27, 2020 at 10:04 AM peter enderborg wrote:
> ...
>
>>>> Im happly fine with replacing the selinux_audited with selinux_denied.  However it is the case where there are more than one denial at the same time. Im not sure how and when it might happen.
>>> One thing I wondered about was why not build up a single string with
>>> all of the permissions instead of generating multiple trace events?
>>> In the previous discussion it was implied that this was due to
>>> limitations in the tracing subsystem's filtering, and based on the
>>> discussion thus far I'm guessing there is little desire for this
>>> information if it can't be filtered on?
>> The information is of course as essential as for audit messages.
>> I dont see much of the problem with having as the first suggestion with
>> a list. It works fine for trace_pipe. It is not failing due to that we can not
>> filter with that.
> I don't really have much personal experience with the kernel tracing
> tools, so an example would be helpful as I'm not really following what
> you are saying.  Are you talking about something like
> "permission=foo,bar,baz"?

In the first patch we hade premission that was in the format:

permission={read !write open}

That would have work fine if it was not for that the permission can be created
dynamically.  It would be very easy to change that to

permission=read permission=!write permission=open

But I think that will cause problems too. The create a format specifiaction
in the trace tree, and I dont think we can describe this format.


>
>> It is cause in other tools in user-space
>> that needs a plugin to parse it. It need static
>> mapping for something that is not really static. Not in runtime, and it will
>> change over time.
> I think we've all come to the conclusion that doing the permission
> bitmap-to-string translation in a plugin is not really desirable.

Yes. But Im arguing that we still have the same information,
but it will "cost" that we have more events. It is a fair trade-off,
it is usually a lot better to have the trace simple than
flexible and let it cost events when needed.


>> A other idea based on the first one is to have multiple pairs like
>>
>> class=file permission=read permission=write permission=open
>>
>> but then you need to filter on numeric values that are not static and
>> I don't know if library can make anything useful from that.
> Oh, wait, is the issue that the tracing subsystem can't filter on
> strings?  That doesn't seem right, but I can understand why one might
> want to avoid that for performance reasons.  If the tracing subsystem
> *can* filter on strings, why did you say that in the "perm=foo
> perm=bar" format one would need to filter on numeric values?  I still
> think I'm missing something here ...
>
No. It can filter on strings. But it can not do any fuzzy matching.
They are equal not not equal. So if you have a parameter value
that is { open read !write } you need to specify a exact match.

With multiple events you match for "open" or "write" not "{ open read !write }".

So you get one event for "open" and a other event for "write".

The numeric values is not matching perm=, it is a match for the
bits in the denied= parameter that is present within selinux_audited event.