Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Eric W. Biederman]

"Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

> Hi Eric,
>
> On 12/22/2016 01:27 AM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>> 
>>> Hi Eric,
>>>
>>> On 12/21/2016 01:17 AM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
 "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

> Hi Eric,
>
> On 12/20/2016 09:22 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>>
>>> Hello Eric,
>>>
>>> On 12/19/2016 11:53 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
 "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

>> 
 Now the question becomes who are the users of this?  Because it just
 occurred to me that we now have an interesting complication.  Userspace
 extending the meaning of the capability bits, and using to protect
 additional things.  Ugh.  That could be a maintenance problem of another
 flavor.  Definitely not my favorite.
>>>
>>> I don't follow you here. Could you say some more about what you mean?
>> 
>> I have seen user space userspace do thing such as extend CAP_SYS_REBOOT
>> to things such as permission to invoke "shutdown -r now".  Which
>> depending on what a clean reboot entails could be greately increasing
>> the scope of CAP_SYS_REBOOT.
>> 
>> I am concerned for that and similar situations that userspace
>> applications could lead us into situation that one wrong decision could
>> wind up being an unfixable mistake because fixing the mistake would
>> break userspsace.
>
> Okay.
>
 So why are we asking the questions about what permissions a process has?
>>>
>>> My main interest here is monitoring/discovery/debugging on a running
>>> system. NS_GET_PARENT, NS_GET_USERNS, NS_GET_CREATOR_UID, and 
>>> NS_GET_NSTYPE provide most of what I'd like to see. Being able to ask
>>> "does this process have permissions in that namespace?" would be nice 
>>> to have in terms of understanding/debugging a system.
>> 
>> If we are just looking at explanations then I seem to have been
>> over-engineering things.  So let's just aim at the two ioctls.
>> Or at least the information in those ioctls.
>
> Okay.
>
>> With at least a comment on the ioctl returning the OWNER_UID that
>> describes why it is not a problem to if the owners uid is something like
>> ((uid_t)-3).  Which overlaps with the space for error return codes.
>>
>> I don't know if we are fine or not, but that review comment definitely
>> deserves some consideration.
>
>
> See my reply just sent to Andrei. We should instead then just return 
> the UID via a buffer pointed to by the ioctl() argument:
>
> ioctl(fd, NS_GET_OWNER_UID, );

That will work without problem.  Especially as unsigned int is the same
on both 32bit and 64bit so we won't need a compat ioctl.

Eric

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Eric W. Biederman]

"Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

> Hi Eric,
>
> On 12/22/2016 01:27 AM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>> 
>>> Hi Eric,
>>>
>>> On 12/21/2016 01:17 AM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
 "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

> Hi Eric,
>
> On 12/20/2016 09:22 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>>
>>> Hello Eric,
>>>
>>> On 12/19/2016 11:53 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
 "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

>> 
 Now the question becomes who are the users of this?  Because it just
 occurred to me that we now have an interesting complication.  Userspace
 extending the meaning of the capability bits, and using to protect
 additional things.  Ugh.  That could be a maintenance problem of another
 flavor.  Definitely not my favorite.
>>>
>>> I don't follow you here. Could you say some more about what you mean?
>> 
>> I have seen user space userspace do thing such as extend CAP_SYS_REBOOT
>> to things such as permission to invoke "shutdown -r now".  Which
>> depending on what a clean reboot entails could be greately increasing
>> the scope of CAP_SYS_REBOOT.
>> 
>> I am concerned for that and similar situations that userspace
>> applications could lead us into situation that one wrong decision could
>> wind up being an unfixable mistake because fixing the mistake would
>> break userspsace.
>
> Okay.
>
 So why are we asking the questions about what permissions a process has?
>>>
>>> My main interest here is monitoring/discovery/debugging on a running
>>> system. NS_GET_PARENT, NS_GET_USERNS, NS_GET_CREATOR_UID, and 
>>> NS_GET_NSTYPE provide most of what I'd like to see. Being able to ask
>>> "does this process have permissions in that namespace?" would be nice 
>>> to have in terms of understanding/debugging a system.
>> 
>> If we are just looking at explanations then I seem to have been
>> over-engineering things.  So let's just aim at the two ioctls.
>> Or at least the information in those ioctls.
>
> Okay.
>
>> With at least a comment on the ioctl returning the OWNER_UID that
>> describes why it is not a problem to if the owners uid is something like
>> ((uid_t)-3).  Which overlaps with the space for error return codes.
>>
>> I don't know if we are fine or not, but that review comment definitely
>> deserves some consideration.
>
>
> See my reply just sent to Andrei. We should instead then just return 
> the UID via a buffer pointed to by the ioctl() argument:
>
> ioctl(fd, NS_GET_OWNER_UID, );

That will work without problem.  Especially as unsigned int is the same
on both 32bit and 64bit so we won't need a compat ioctl.

Eric

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)]

Hi Eric,

On 12/22/2016 01:27 AM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
> 
>> Hi Eric,
>>
>> On 12/21/2016 01:17 AM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>>>
 Hi Eric,

 On 12/20/2016 09:22 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>
>> Hello Eric,
>>
>> On 12/19/2016 11:53 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>>>
> 
>>> Now the question becomes who are the users of this?  Because it just
>>> occurred to me that we now have an interesting complication.  Userspace
>>> extending the meaning of the capability bits, and using to protect
>>> additional things.  Ugh.  That could be a maintenance problem of another
>>> flavor.  Definitely not my favorite.
>>
>> I don't follow you here. Could you say some more about what you mean?
> 
> I have seen user space userspace do thing such as extend CAP_SYS_REBOOT
> to things such as permission to invoke "shutdown -r now".  Which
> depending on what a clean reboot entails could be greately increasing
> the scope of CAP_SYS_REBOOT.
> 
> I am concerned for that and similar situations that userspace
> applications could lead us into situation that one wrong decision could
> wind up being an unfixable mistake because fixing the mistake would
> break userspsace.

Okay.

>>> So why are we asking the questions about what permissions a process has?
>>
>> My main interest here is monitoring/discovery/debugging on a running
>> system. NS_GET_PARENT, NS_GET_USERNS, NS_GET_CREATOR_UID, and 
>> NS_GET_NSTYPE provide most of what I'd like to see. Being able to ask
>> "does this process have permissions in that namespace?" would be nice 
>> to have in terms of understanding/debugging a system.
> 
> If we are just looking at explanations then I seem to have been
> over-engineering things.  So let's just aim at the two ioctls.
> Or at least the information in those ioctls.

Okay.

> With at least a comment on the ioctl returning the OWNER_UID that
> describes why it is not a problem to if the owners uid is something like
> ((uid_t)-3).  Which overlaps with the space for error return codes.
>
> I don't know if we are fine or not, but that review comment definitely
> deserves some consideration.


See my reply just sent to Andrei. We should instead then just return 
the UID via a buffer pointed to by the ioctl() argument:

ioctl(fd, NS_GET_OWNER_UID, );

Cheers,

Michael


-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)]

Hi Eric,

On 12/22/2016 01:27 AM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
> 
>> Hi Eric,
>>
>> On 12/21/2016 01:17 AM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>>>
 Hi Eric,

 On 12/20/2016 09:22 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>
>> Hello Eric,
>>
>> On 12/19/2016 11:53 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>>>
> 
>>> Now the question becomes who are the users of this?  Because it just
>>> occurred to me that we now have an interesting complication.  Userspace
>>> extending the meaning of the capability bits, and using to protect
>>> additional things.  Ugh.  That could be a maintenance problem of another
>>> flavor.  Definitely not my favorite.
>>
>> I don't follow you here. Could you say some more about what you mean?
> 
> I have seen user space userspace do thing such as extend CAP_SYS_REBOOT
> to things such as permission to invoke "shutdown -r now".  Which
> depending on what a clean reboot entails could be greately increasing
> the scope of CAP_SYS_REBOOT.
> 
> I am concerned for that and similar situations that userspace
> applications could lead us into situation that one wrong decision could
> wind up being an unfixable mistake because fixing the mistake would
> break userspsace.

Okay.

>>> So why are we asking the questions about what permissions a process has?
>>
>> My main interest here is monitoring/discovery/debugging on a running
>> system. NS_GET_PARENT, NS_GET_USERNS, NS_GET_CREATOR_UID, and 
>> NS_GET_NSTYPE provide most of what I'd like to see. Being able to ask
>> "does this process have permissions in that namespace?" would be nice 
>> to have in terms of understanding/debugging a system.
> 
> If we are just looking at explanations then I seem to have been
> over-engineering things.  So let's just aim at the two ioctls.
> Or at least the information in those ioctls.

Okay.

> With at least a comment on the ioctl returning the OWNER_UID that
> describes why it is not a problem to if the owners uid is something like
> ((uid_t)-3).  Which overlaps with the space for error return codes.
>
> I don't know if we are fine or not, but that review comment definitely
> deserves some consideration.


See my reply just sent to Andrei. We should instead then just return 
the UID via a buffer pointed to by the ioctl() argument:

ioctl(fd, NS_GET_OWNER_UID, );

Cheers,

Michael


-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Eric W. Biederman]

"Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

> Hi Eric,
>
> On 12/21/2016 01:17 AM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>> 
>>> Hi Eric,
>>>
>>> On 12/20/2016 09:22 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
 "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

> Hello Eric,
>
> On 12/19/2016 11:53 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>>

>> Now the question becomes who are the users of this?  Because it just
>> occurred to me that we now have an interesting complication.  Userspace
>> extending the meaning of the capability bits, and using to protect
>> additional things.  Ugh.  That could be a maintenance problem of another
>> flavor.  Definitely not my favorite.
>
> I don't follow you here. Could you say some more about what you mean?

I have seen user space userspace do thing such as extend CAP_SYS_REBOOT
to things such as permission to invoke "shutdown -r now".  Which
depending on what a clean reboot entails could be greately increasing
the scope of CAP_SYS_REBOOT.

I am concerned for that and similar situations that userspace
applications could lead us into situation that one wrong decision could
wind up being an unfixable mistake because fixing the mistake would
break userspsace.

>> So why are we asking the questions about what permissions a process has?
>
> My main interest here is monitoring/discovery/debugging on a running
> system. NS_GET_PARENT, NS_GET_USERNS, NS_GET_CREATOR_UID, and 
> NS_GET_NSTYPE provide most of what I'd like to see. Being able to ask
> "does this process have permissions in that namespace?" would be nice 
> to have in terms of understanding/debugging a system.

If we are just looking at explanations then I seem to have been
over-engineering things.  So let's just aim at the two ioctls.
Or at least the information in those ioctls.

With at least a comment on the ioctl returning the OWNER_UID that
describes why it is not a problem to if the owners uid is something like
((uid_t)-3).  Which overlaps with the space for error return codes.

I don't know if we are fine or not, but that review comment definitely
deserves some consideration.

Eric

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Eric W. Biederman]

"Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

> Hi Eric,
>
> On 12/21/2016 01:17 AM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>> 
>>> Hi Eric,
>>>
>>> On 12/20/2016 09:22 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
 "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

> Hello Eric,
>
> On 12/19/2016 11:53 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>>

>> Now the question becomes who are the users of this?  Because it just
>> occurred to me that we now have an interesting complication.  Userspace
>> extending the meaning of the capability bits, and using to protect
>> additional things.  Ugh.  That could be a maintenance problem of another
>> flavor.  Definitely not my favorite.
>
> I don't follow you here. Could you say some more about what you mean?

I have seen user space userspace do thing such as extend CAP_SYS_REBOOT
to things such as permission to invoke "shutdown -r now".  Which
depending on what a clean reboot entails could be greately increasing
the scope of CAP_SYS_REBOOT.

I am concerned for that and similar situations that userspace
applications could lead us into situation that one wrong decision could
wind up being an unfixable mistake because fixing the mistake would
break userspsace.

>> So why are we asking the questions about what permissions a process has?
>
> My main interest here is monitoring/discovery/debugging on a running
> system. NS_GET_PARENT, NS_GET_USERNS, NS_GET_CREATOR_UID, and 
> NS_GET_NSTYPE provide most of what I'd like to see. Being able to ask
> "does this process have permissions in that namespace?" would be nice 
> to have in terms of understanding/debugging a system.

If we are just looking at explanations then I seem to have been
over-engineering things.  So let's just aim at the two ioctls.
Or at least the information in those ioctls.

With at least a comment on the ioctl returning the OWNER_UID that
describes why it is not a problem to if the owners uid is something like
((uid_t)-3).  Which overlaps with the space for error return codes.

I don't know if we are fine or not, but that review comment definitely
deserves some consideration.

Eric

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)]

Hi Eric,

On 12/21/2016 01:17 AM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
> 
>> Hi Eric,
>>
>> On 12/20/2016 09:22 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>>>
 Hello Eric,

 On 12/19/2016 11:53 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>
>> Eric,

[...]

 3. NS_GET_NSTYPE and NS_GET_CREATOR_UID solve my problem, but
obviously your idea would make life simpler for user space.
Am I correct to understand that you mean an API that takes
three pieces of info: a PID, a capability, and an fd referring
to a /proc/PID/ns/xxx, and tells us whether PID has the specified
capability for operations in the specified namespace?
>>>
>>> Something like that.  But yes something we can wire up to
>>> ns_capable_noaudit and be told the result.  
>>
>> Yes, that was my line of thinking also. It seems to me that to
>> prevent information leaks, we also should check that the caller
>> has some suitable capability in the target namespace, right?
>> (I presume a ptrace_may_access() check.)
> 
> Well over the target process but yes.
> 
>>> That will let the
>>> LSMs and any future kerel changes have their say, without any extra
>>> maintenance burden in the kernel.
>>
>> Yes.
>>
>>> What I really don't want is for userspace to start depending on the
>>> current formula being the only factors that say if it has a capabliltiy
>>> in a certain situation because in practice that just isn't true.
>>> Permission checks just keep evoloving in the kernel.
>>
>> This was the bit I hadn't really considered when I first started down 
>> this path, but I started to see the light a bit already today, but
>> didn't have it so crisply in my mind as you just said it there.
>>
>> So, we have two ioctls already in 4.9, I proposed two more. And 
>> then we have this fifth operation. Should we have an nsctl(2)?
> 
> I would rather move the other direction and have a system call.

Okay -- I'll give that a some thought.

>> In the meantime, here's something I hacked together. I know it
>> needs work, but I just want to check whether it's the direction
>> that you were meaning in terms of the checks. It's done as an
>> ioctl() (structure hard coded in place while I play about, and
>> some names and types should certainly be better). Leaving aside 
>> the messy bits, is the below roughly the kind of checking you 
>> expect to be embodied in this operation?
> 
> Yes.  It probably nees u32 instead of long, or eles we need to have
> a compat version for 32bit OS's.

Yes.

> Now the question becomes who are the users of this?  Because it just
> occurred to me that we now have an interesting complication.  Userspace
> extending the meaning of the capability bits, and using to protect
> additional things.  Ugh.  That could be a maintenance problem of another
> flavor.  Definitely not my favorite.

I don't follow you here. Could you say some more about what you mean?

> The access system is limited to asking about yourself, and to
> asking very specific questions.  If our new operation did something
> similar and only allowed asking about yourself, and a capablity I would
> find it less scary, 

Okay. But that's a less interesting operation from my point of view.
I mean: one way of knowing if we have permission to do an operation
is to try to do it.

> and I am wondering if it would be possible to ask
> not about a capability but an operation that the capability guards
> such as chroot.
> 
> Implementing target operations instead of target capabilities would be a
> bit trickier to implement (as it requires factoring out the permission
> checks) but it may be much more useful in the long run.

But, would this not mean factoring out the permission checks on a per 
operation basis? (There are of courses hundreds of such checks.)

> So why are we asking the questions about what permissions a process has?

My main interest here is monitoring/discovery/debugging on a running
system. NS_GET_PARENT, NS_GET_USERNS, NS_GET_CREATOR_UID, and 
NS_GET_NSTYPE provide most of what I'd like to see. Being able to ask
"does this process have permissions in that namespace?" would be nice 
to have in terms of understanding/debugging a system.

Cheers,

Michael

-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)]

Hi Eric,

On 12/21/2016 01:17 AM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
> 
>> Hi Eric,
>>
>> On 12/20/2016 09:22 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>>>
 Hello Eric,

 On 12/19/2016 11:53 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>
>> Eric,

[...]

 3. NS_GET_NSTYPE and NS_GET_CREATOR_UID solve my problem, but
obviously your idea would make life simpler for user space.
Am I correct to understand that you mean an API that takes
three pieces of info: a PID, a capability, and an fd referring
to a /proc/PID/ns/xxx, and tells us whether PID has the specified
capability for operations in the specified namespace?
>>>
>>> Something like that.  But yes something we can wire up to
>>> ns_capable_noaudit and be told the result.  
>>
>> Yes, that was my line of thinking also. It seems to me that to
>> prevent information leaks, we also should check that the caller
>> has some suitable capability in the target namespace, right?
>> (I presume a ptrace_may_access() check.)
> 
> Well over the target process but yes.
> 
>>> That will let the
>>> LSMs and any future kerel changes have their say, without any extra
>>> maintenance burden in the kernel.
>>
>> Yes.
>>
>>> What I really don't want is for userspace to start depending on the
>>> current formula being the only factors that say if it has a capabliltiy
>>> in a certain situation because in practice that just isn't true.
>>> Permission checks just keep evoloving in the kernel.
>>
>> This was the bit I hadn't really considered when I first started down 
>> this path, but I started to see the light a bit already today, but
>> didn't have it so crisply in my mind as you just said it there.
>>
>> So, we have two ioctls already in 4.9, I proposed two more. And 
>> then we have this fifth operation. Should we have an nsctl(2)?
> 
> I would rather move the other direction and have a system call.

Okay -- I'll give that a some thought.

>> In the meantime, here's something I hacked together. I know it
>> needs work, but I just want to check whether it's the direction
>> that you were meaning in terms of the checks. It's done as an
>> ioctl() (structure hard coded in place while I play about, and
>> some names and types should certainly be better). Leaving aside 
>> the messy bits, is the below roughly the kind of checking you 
>> expect to be embodied in this operation?
> 
> Yes.  It probably nees u32 instead of long, or eles we need to have
> a compat version for 32bit OS's.

Yes.

> Now the question becomes who are the users of this?  Because it just
> occurred to me that we now have an interesting complication.  Userspace
> extending the meaning of the capability bits, and using to protect
> additional things.  Ugh.  That could be a maintenance problem of another
> flavor.  Definitely not my favorite.

I don't follow you here. Could you say some more about what you mean?

> The access system is limited to asking about yourself, and to
> asking very specific questions.  If our new operation did something
> similar and only allowed asking about yourself, and a capablity I would
> find it less scary, 

Okay. But that's a less interesting operation from my point of view.
I mean: one way of knowing if we have permission to do an operation
is to try to do it.

> and I am wondering if it would be possible to ask
> not about a capability but an operation that the capability guards
> such as chroot.
> 
> Implementing target operations instead of target capabilities would be a
> bit trickier to implement (as it requires factoring out the permission
> checks) but it may be much more useful in the long run.

But, would this not mean factoring out the permission checks on a per 
operation basis? (There are of courses hundreds of such checks.)

> So why are we asking the questions about what permissions a process has?

My main interest here is monitoring/discovery/debugging on a running
system. NS_GET_PARENT, NS_GET_USERNS, NS_GET_CREATOR_UID, and 
NS_GET_NSTYPE provide most of what I'd like to see. Being able to ask
"does this process have permissions in that namespace?" would be nice 
to have in terms of understanding/debugging a system.

Cheers,

Michael

-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Eric W. Biederman]

"Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

> Hi Eric,
>
> On 12/20/2016 09:22 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>> 
>>> Hello Eric,
>>>
>>> On 12/19/2016 11:53 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
 "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

> Eric,
>
> The code proposed in this patch series is pretty small. Is there any
> chance we could make the 4.10 merge window, if the changes seem
> acceptable to you?

 I see why you are asking but I am not comfortable with aiming for
 the merge window that is on-going and could close at any moment.
 I have seen recenly too many patches that should work fine have
 some odd minor issue.  Like an extra _ in a label used in an ifdef
 that resulted in memory stomps.Linus might be more brave but i would
 rather wait until the next merge window, so I don't need to worry about
 spoiling anyone's holidays with a typo someone over looked.
>>>
>>> I'll just gently ask if you'll reconsider and take another look at the
>>> patches. They patches are very small, and don't change any existing
>>> behavior. And if we see a problem in the next weeks they could be pulled.
>>> In the meantime, I'd be aiming to publicize this API somewhat, so that we
>>> might get some eyeballs to spot design bugs. But, I do understand your
>>> position, if the answer is still "not for this merge window".
>> 
>> My position is still not this merge window.  I am more than happy to
>> queue up the changes for the next one.  Even on the best of days there
>> is a reasonable chance Linus would not be happy to receive code
>> development done in the merge window.
>
> Okay. So, I can at least think about this at leisure! (Actually, 
> I think I really do mean: thanks for saying "no" again.)
>
>> I think there is also just a little bit of discussion that needs
>> to happen with these new userspace APIs (below).  And I have seen way
>> too many times user space APIs added too quickly and having to be
>> repaired afterwards.
>
> Yes, I certainly understand that.
>
 At first glance these patches seem reasonable. I don't see any problem
 with the ioctls you have added.

 That said I have a question.  Should we provide a more direct way to
 find the answer to your question?  Something like the access system
 call?

 I think a more direct answer would be more maintainable in the long run
 as it does not bind tools to specific implementation details in the
 future.  Which could allow us to account for LSM policies and the like.
>>>
>>> My thoughts:
>>>
>>> 1. Regarding NS_GET_NSTYPE...  It always struck me as a little odd
>>>that you could ask setns() to check if the supplied FD referred
>>>to a certain type of NS (and thus, in a round about way, setns()
>>>gives us the same information as NS_GET_NSTYPE), but you can't
>>>directly ask what the NS type is. The fact that setns() has this
>>>facility suggests that there could be other uses for the operation
>>>"tell me what type of NS this FD refers to".
>> 
>> Yes.  I have no problem with that one.
>> 
>>> 2. Regarding NS_GET_CREATOR_UID... There are defined rules about what
>>>this UID means with respect to capabilities in a namespace. It's
>>>not an implementation detail, as I understand it. Also in terms of
>>>introspecting to try to understand the structure of namespaces on
>>>a running system, knowing this UID is useful in and of itself.
>> 
>> I am not quite sold on the name NS_GET_CREATOR_UID.  NS_GET_OWNER_UID
>> seems to match the code better.  The owner is the creator but
>> the important part seems to be the ownership not the act of creation.
>
> I actually thought about NS_GET_OWNER, but shied away from it
> because it had echoes of "get owning userns". NS_GET_OWNER_UID
> is better than NS_GET_OWNER, and certainly not worse than
> NS_GET_CREATOR_UID.
>
>>> 3. NS_GET_NSTYPE and NS_GET_CREATOR_UID solve my problem, but
>>>obviously your idea would make life simpler for user space.
>>>Am I correct to understand that you mean an API that takes
>>>three pieces of info: a PID, a capability, and an fd referring
>>>to a /proc/PID/ns/xxx, and tells us whether PID has the specified
>>>capability for operations in the specified namespace?
>> 
>> Something like that.  But yes something we can wire up to
>> ns_capable_noaudit and be told the result.  
>
> Yes, that was my line of thinking also. It seems to me that to
> prevent information leaks, we also should check that the caller
> has some suitable capability in the target namespace, right?
> (I presume a ptrace_may_access() check.)

Well over the target process but yes.

>> That will let the
>> LSMs and any future kerel changes have their say, without any extra
>> maintenance burden in the kernel.
>
> Yes.
>
>> What I really don't want is for userspace to start 

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Eric W. Biederman]

"Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

> Hi Eric,
>
> On 12/20/2016 09:22 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>> 
>>> Hello Eric,
>>>
>>> On 12/19/2016 11:53 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
 "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

> Eric,
>
> The code proposed in this patch series is pretty small. Is there any
> chance we could make the 4.10 merge window, if the changes seem
> acceptable to you?

 I see why you are asking but I am not comfortable with aiming for
 the merge window that is on-going and could close at any moment.
 I have seen recenly too many patches that should work fine have
 some odd minor issue.  Like an extra _ in a label used in an ifdef
 that resulted in memory stomps.Linus might be more brave but i would
 rather wait until the next merge window, so I don't need to worry about
 spoiling anyone's holidays with a typo someone over looked.
>>>
>>> I'll just gently ask if you'll reconsider and take another look at the
>>> patches. They patches are very small, and don't change any existing
>>> behavior. And if we see a problem in the next weeks they could be pulled.
>>> In the meantime, I'd be aiming to publicize this API somewhat, so that we
>>> might get some eyeballs to spot design bugs. But, I do understand your
>>> position, if the answer is still "not for this merge window".
>> 
>> My position is still not this merge window.  I am more than happy to
>> queue up the changes for the next one.  Even on the best of days there
>> is a reasonable chance Linus would not be happy to receive code
>> development done in the merge window.
>
> Okay. So, I can at least think about this at leisure! (Actually, 
> I think I really do mean: thanks for saying "no" again.)
>
>> I think there is also just a little bit of discussion that needs
>> to happen with these new userspace APIs (below).  And I have seen way
>> too many times user space APIs added too quickly and having to be
>> repaired afterwards.
>
> Yes, I certainly understand that.
>
 At first glance these patches seem reasonable. I don't see any problem
 with the ioctls you have added.

 That said I have a question.  Should we provide a more direct way to
 find the answer to your question?  Something like the access system
 call?

 I think a more direct answer would be more maintainable in the long run
 as it does not bind tools to specific implementation details in the
 future.  Which could allow us to account for LSM policies and the like.
>>>
>>> My thoughts:
>>>
>>> 1. Regarding NS_GET_NSTYPE...  It always struck me as a little odd
>>>that you could ask setns() to check if the supplied FD referred
>>>to a certain type of NS (and thus, in a round about way, setns()
>>>gives us the same information as NS_GET_NSTYPE), but you can't
>>>directly ask what the NS type is. The fact that setns() has this
>>>facility suggests that there could be other uses for the operation
>>>"tell me what type of NS this FD refers to".
>> 
>> Yes.  I have no problem with that one.
>> 
>>> 2. Regarding NS_GET_CREATOR_UID... There are defined rules about what
>>>this UID means with respect to capabilities in a namespace. It's
>>>not an implementation detail, as I understand it. Also in terms of
>>>introspecting to try to understand the structure of namespaces on
>>>a running system, knowing this UID is useful in and of itself.
>> 
>> I am not quite sold on the name NS_GET_CREATOR_UID.  NS_GET_OWNER_UID
>> seems to match the code better.  The owner is the creator but
>> the important part seems to be the ownership not the act of creation.
>
> I actually thought about NS_GET_OWNER, but shied away from it
> because it had echoes of "get owning userns". NS_GET_OWNER_UID
> is better than NS_GET_OWNER, and certainly not worse than
> NS_GET_CREATOR_UID.
>
>>> 3. NS_GET_NSTYPE and NS_GET_CREATOR_UID solve my problem, but
>>>obviously your idea would make life simpler for user space.
>>>Am I correct to understand that you mean an API that takes
>>>three pieces of info: a PID, a capability, and an fd referring
>>>to a /proc/PID/ns/xxx, and tells us whether PID has the specified
>>>capability for operations in the specified namespace?
>> 
>> Something like that.  But yes something we can wire up to
>> ns_capable_noaudit and be told the result.  
>
> Yes, that was my line of thinking also. It seems to me that to
> prevent information leaks, we also should check that the caller
> has some suitable capability in the target namespace, right?
> (I presume a ptrace_may_access() check.)

Well over the target process but yes.

>> That will let the
>> LSMs and any future kerel changes have their say, without any extra
>> maintenance burden in the kernel.
>
> Yes.
>
>> What I really don't want is for userspace to start depending on the
>> current formula being the only factors that say if it 

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)]

Hi Eric,

On 12/20/2016 09:22 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
> 
>> Hello Eric,
>>
>> On 12/19/2016 11:53 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>>>
 Eric,

 The code proposed in this patch series is pretty small. Is there any
 chance we could make the 4.10 merge window, if the changes seem
 acceptable to you?
>>>
>>> I see why you are asking but I am not comfortable with aiming for
>>> the merge window that is on-going and could close at any moment.
>>> I have seen recenly too many patches that should work fine have
>>> some odd minor issue.  Like an extra _ in a label used in an ifdef
>>> that resulted in memory stomps.Linus might be more brave but i would
>>> rather wait until the next merge window, so I don't need to worry about
>>> spoiling anyone's holidays with a typo someone over looked.
>>
>> I'll just gently ask if you'll reconsider and take another look at the
>> patches. They patches are very small, and don't change any existing
>> behavior. And if we see a problem in the next weeks they could be pulled.
>> In the meantime, I'd be aiming to publicize this API somewhat, so that we
>> might get some eyeballs to spot design bugs. But, I do understand your
>> position, if the answer is still "not for this merge window".
> 
> My position is still not this merge window.  I am more than happy to
> queue up the changes for the next one.  Even on the best of days there
> is a reasonable chance Linus would not be happy to receive code
> development done in the merge window.

Okay. So, I can at least think about this at leisure! (Actually, 
I think I really do mean: thanks for saying "no" again.)

> I think there is also just a little bit of discussion that needs
> to happen with these new userspace APIs (below).  And I have seen way
> too many times user space APIs added too quickly and having to be
> repaired afterwards.

Yes, I certainly understand that.

>>> At first glance these patches seem reasonable. I don't see any problem
>>> with the ioctls you have added.
>>>
>>> That said I have a question.  Should we provide a more direct way to
>>> find the answer to your question?  Something like the access system
>>> call?
>>>
>>> I think a more direct answer would be more maintainable in the long run
>>> as it does not bind tools to specific implementation details in the
>>> future.  Which could allow us to account for LSM policies and the like.
>>
>> My thoughts:
>>
>> 1. Regarding NS_GET_NSTYPE...  It always struck me as a little odd
>>that you could ask setns() to check if the supplied FD referred
>>to a certain type of NS (and thus, in a round about way, setns()
>>gives us the same information as NS_GET_NSTYPE), but you can't
>>directly ask what the NS type is. The fact that setns() has this
>>facility suggests that there could be other uses for the operation
>>"tell me what type of NS this FD refers to".
> 
> Yes.  I have no problem with that one.
> 
>> 2. Regarding NS_GET_CREATOR_UID... There are defined rules about what
>>this UID means with respect to capabilities in a namespace. It's
>>not an implementation detail, as I understand it. Also in terms of
>>introspecting to try to understand the structure of namespaces on
>>a running system, knowing this UID is useful in and of itself.
> 
> I am not quite sold on the name NS_GET_CREATOR_UID.  NS_GET_OWNER_UID
> seems to match the code better.  The owner is the creator but
> the important part seems to be the ownership not the act of creation.

I actually thought about NS_GET_OWNER, but shied away from it
because it had echoes of "get owning userns". NS_GET_OWNER_UID
is better than NS_GET_OWNER, and certainly not worse than
NS_GET_CREATOR_UID.

>> 3. NS_GET_NSTYPE and NS_GET_CREATOR_UID solve my problem, but
>>obviously your idea would make life simpler for user space.
>>Am I correct to understand that you mean an API that takes
>>three pieces of info: a PID, a capability, and an fd referring
>>to a /proc/PID/ns/xxx, and tells us whether PID has the specified
>>capability for operations in the specified namespace?
> 
> Something like that.  But yes something we can wire up to
> ns_capable_noaudit and be told the result.  

Yes, that was my line of thinking also. It seems to me that to
prevent information leaks, we also should check that the caller
has some suitable capability in the target namespace, right?
(I presume a ptrace_may_access() check.)

> That will let the
> LSMs and any future kerel changes have their say, without any extra
> maintenance burden in the kernel.

Yes.

> What I really don't want is for userspace to start depending on the
> current formula being the only factors that say if it has a capabliltiy
> in a certain situation because in practice that just isn't true.
> Permission checks just keep evoloving in the kernel.

This was 

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)]

Hi Eric,

On 12/20/2016 09:22 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
> 
>> Hello Eric,
>>
>> On 12/19/2016 11:53 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>>>
 Eric,

 The code proposed in this patch series is pretty small. Is there any
 chance we could make the 4.10 merge window, if the changes seem
 acceptable to you?
>>>
>>> I see why you are asking but I am not comfortable with aiming for
>>> the merge window that is on-going and could close at any moment.
>>> I have seen recenly too many patches that should work fine have
>>> some odd minor issue.  Like an extra _ in a label used in an ifdef
>>> that resulted in memory stomps.Linus might be more brave but i would
>>> rather wait until the next merge window, so I don't need to worry about
>>> spoiling anyone's holidays with a typo someone over looked.
>>
>> I'll just gently ask if you'll reconsider and take another look at the
>> patches. They patches are very small, and don't change any existing
>> behavior. And if we see a problem in the next weeks they could be pulled.
>> In the meantime, I'd be aiming to publicize this API somewhat, so that we
>> might get some eyeballs to spot design bugs. But, I do understand your
>> position, if the answer is still "not for this merge window".
> 
> My position is still not this merge window.  I am more than happy to
> queue up the changes for the next one.  Even on the best of days there
> is a reasonable chance Linus would not be happy to receive code
> development done in the merge window.

Okay. So, I can at least think about this at leisure! (Actually, 
I think I really do mean: thanks for saying "no" again.)

> I think there is also just a little bit of discussion that needs
> to happen with these new userspace APIs (below).  And I have seen way
> too many times user space APIs added too quickly and having to be
> repaired afterwards.

Yes, I certainly understand that.

>>> At first glance these patches seem reasonable. I don't see any problem
>>> with the ioctls you have added.
>>>
>>> That said I have a question.  Should we provide a more direct way to
>>> find the answer to your question?  Something like the access system
>>> call?
>>>
>>> I think a more direct answer would be more maintainable in the long run
>>> as it does not bind tools to specific implementation details in the
>>> future.  Which could allow us to account for LSM policies and the like.
>>
>> My thoughts:
>>
>> 1. Regarding NS_GET_NSTYPE...  It always struck me as a little odd
>>that you could ask setns() to check if the supplied FD referred
>>to a certain type of NS (and thus, in a round about way, setns()
>>gives us the same information as NS_GET_NSTYPE), but you can't
>>directly ask what the NS type is. The fact that setns() has this
>>facility suggests that there could be other uses for the operation
>>"tell me what type of NS this FD refers to".
> 
> Yes.  I have no problem with that one.
> 
>> 2. Regarding NS_GET_CREATOR_UID... There are defined rules about what
>>this UID means with respect to capabilities in a namespace. It's
>>not an implementation detail, as I understand it. Also in terms of
>>introspecting to try to understand the structure of namespaces on
>>a running system, knowing this UID is useful in and of itself.
> 
> I am not quite sold on the name NS_GET_CREATOR_UID.  NS_GET_OWNER_UID
> seems to match the code better.  The owner is the creator but
> the important part seems to be the ownership not the act of creation.

I actually thought about NS_GET_OWNER, but shied away from it
because it had echoes of "get owning userns". NS_GET_OWNER_UID
is better than NS_GET_OWNER, and certainly not worse than
NS_GET_CREATOR_UID.

>> 3. NS_GET_NSTYPE and NS_GET_CREATOR_UID solve my problem, but
>>obviously your idea would make life simpler for user space.
>>Am I correct to understand that you mean an API that takes
>>three pieces of info: a PID, a capability, and an fd referring
>>to a /proc/PID/ns/xxx, and tells us whether PID has the specified
>>capability for operations in the specified namespace?
> 
> Something like that.  But yes something we can wire up to
> ns_capable_noaudit and be told the result.  

Yes, that was my line of thinking also. It seems to me that to
prevent information leaks, we also should check that the caller
has some suitable capability in the target namespace, right?
(I presume a ptrace_may_access() check.)

> That will let the
> LSMs and any future kerel changes have their say, without any extra
> maintenance burden in the kernel.

Yes.

> What I really don't want is for userspace to start depending on the
> current formula being the only factors that say if it has a capabliltiy
> in a certain situation because in practice that just isn't true.
> Permission checks just keep evoloving in the kernel.

This was the bit I hadn't really considered when I first 

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Eric W. Biederman]

"Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

> Hello Eric,
>
> On 12/19/2016 11:53 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>> 
>>> Eric,
>>>
>>> The code proposed in this patch series is pretty small. Is there any
>>> chance we could make the 4.10 merge window, if the changes seem
>>> acceptable to you?
>> 
>> I see why you are asking but I am not comfortable with aiming for
>> the merge window that is on-going and could close at any moment.
>> I have seen recenly too many patches that should work fine have
>> some odd minor issue.  Like an extra _ in a label used in an ifdef
>> that resulted in memory stomps.Linus might be more brave but i would
>> rather wait until the next merge window, so I don't need to worry about
>> spoiling anyone's holidays with a typo someone over looked.
>
> I'll just gently ask if you'll reconsider and take another look at the
> patches. They patches are very small, and don't change any existing
> behavior. And if we see a problem in the next weeks they could be pulled.
> In the meantime, I'd be aiming to publicize this API somewhat, so that we
> might get some eyeballs to spot design bugs. But, I do understand your
> position, if the answer is still "not for this merge window".

My position is still not this merge window.  I am more than happy to
queue up the changes for the next one.  Even on the best of days there
is a reasonable chance Linus would not be happy to receive code
development done in the merge window.

I think there is also just a little bit of discussion that needs
to happen with these new userspace APIs (below).  And I have seen way
too many times user space APIs added too quickly and having to be
repaired afterwards.

>> At first glance these patches seem reasonable. I don't see any problem
>> with the ioctls you have added.
>> 
>> That said I have a question.  Should we provide a more direct way to
>> find the answer to your question?  Something like the access system
>> call?
>> 
>> I think a more direct answer would be more maintainable in the long run
>> as it does not bind tools to specific implementation details in the
>> future.  Which could allow us to account for LSM policies and the like.
>
> My thoughts:
>
> 1. Regarding NS_GET_NSTYPE...  It always struck me as a little odd
>that you could ask setns() to check if the supplied FD referred
>to a certain type of NS (and thus, in a round about way, setns()
>gives us the same information as NS_GET_NSTYPE), but you can't
>directly ask what the NS type is. The fact that setns() has this
>facility suggests that there could be other uses for the operation
>"tell me what type of NS this FD refers to".

Yes.  I have no problem with that one.

> 2. Regarding NS_GET_CREATOR_UID... There are defined rules about what
>this UID means with respect to capabilities in a namespace. It's
>not an implementation detail, as I understand it. Also in terms of
>introspecting to try to understand the structure of namespaces on
>a running system, knowing this UID is useful in and of itself.

I am not quite sold on the name NS_GET_CREATOR_UID.  NS_GET_OWNER_UID
seems to match the code better.  The owner is the creator but
the important part seems to be the ownership not the act of creation.

> 3. NS_GET_NSTYPE and NS_GET_CREATOR_UID solve my problem, but
>obviously your idea would make life simpler for user space.
>Am I correct to understand that you mean an API that takes
>three pieces of info: a PID, a capability, and an fd referring
>to a /proc/PID/ns/xxx, and tells us whether PID has the specified
>capability for operations in the specified namespace?

Something like that.  But yes something we can wire up to
ns_capable_noaudit and be told the result.  That will let the
LSMs and any future kerel changes have their say, without any extra
maintenance burden in the kernel.

What I really don't want is for userspace to start depending on the
current formula being the only factors that say if it has a capabliltiy
in a certain situation because in practice that just isn't true.
Permission checks just keep evoloving in the kernel.

Eric

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Eric W. Biederman]

"Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

> Hello Eric,
>
> On 12/19/2016 11:53 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
>> 
>>> Eric,
>>>
>>> The code proposed in this patch series is pretty small. Is there any
>>> chance we could make the 4.10 merge window, if the changes seem
>>> acceptable to you?
>> 
>> I see why you are asking but I am not comfortable with aiming for
>> the merge window that is on-going and could close at any moment.
>> I have seen recenly too many patches that should work fine have
>> some odd minor issue.  Like an extra _ in a label used in an ifdef
>> that resulted in memory stomps.Linus might be more brave but i would
>> rather wait until the next merge window, so I don't need to worry about
>> spoiling anyone's holidays with a typo someone over looked.
>
> I'll just gently ask if you'll reconsider and take another look at the
> patches. They patches are very small, and don't change any existing
> behavior. And if we see a problem in the next weeks they could be pulled.
> In the meantime, I'd be aiming to publicize this API somewhat, so that we
> might get some eyeballs to spot design bugs. But, I do understand your
> position, if the answer is still "not for this merge window".

My position is still not this merge window.  I am more than happy to
queue up the changes for the next one.  Even on the best of days there
is a reasonable chance Linus would not be happy to receive code
development done in the merge window.

I think there is also just a little bit of discussion that needs
to happen with these new userspace APIs (below).  And I have seen way
too many times user space APIs added too quickly and having to be
repaired afterwards.

>> At first glance these patches seem reasonable. I don't see any problem
>> with the ioctls you have added.
>> 
>> That said I have a question.  Should we provide a more direct way to
>> find the answer to your question?  Something like the access system
>> call?
>> 
>> I think a more direct answer would be more maintainable in the long run
>> as it does not bind tools to specific implementation details in the
>> future.  Which could allow us to account for LSM policies and the like.
>
> My thoughts:
>
> 1. Regarding NS_GET_NSTYPE...  It always struck me as a little odd
>that you could ask setns() to check if the supplied FD referred
>to a certain type of NS (and thus, in a round about way, setns()
>gives us the same information as NS_GET_NSTYPE), but you can't
>directly ask what the NS type is. The fact that setns() has this
>facility suggests that there could be other uses for the operation
>"tell me what type of NS this FD refers to".

Yes.  I have no problem with that one.

> 2. Regarding NS_GET_CREATOR_UID... There are defined rules about what
>this UID means with respect to capabilities in a namespace. It's
>not an implementation detail, as I understand it. Also in terms of
>introspecting to try to understand the structure of namespaces on
>a running system, knowing this UID is useful in and of itself.

I am not quite sold on the name NS_GET_CREATOR_UID.  NS_GET_OWNER_UID
seems to match the code better.  The owner is the creator but
the important part seems to be the ownership not the act of creation.

> 3. NS_GET_NSTYPE and NS_GET_CREATOR_UID solve my problem, but
>obviously your idea would make life simpler for user space.
>Am I correct to understand that you mean an API that takes
>three pieces of info: a PID, a capability, and an fd referring
>to a /proc/PID/ns/xxx, and tells us whether PID has the specified
>capability for operations in the specified namespace?

Something like that.  But yes something we can wire up to
ns_capable_noaudit and be told the result.  That will let the
LSMs and any future kerel changes have their say, without any extra
maintenance burden in the kernel.

What I really don't want is for userspace to start depending on the
current formula being the only factors that say if it has a capabliltiy
in a certain situation because in practice that just isn't true.
Permission checks just keep evoloving in the kernel.

Eric

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)]

Hello Eric,

On 12/19/2016 11:53 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
> 
>> Eric,
>>
>> The code proposed in this patch series is pretty small. Is there any
>> chance we could make the 4.10 merge window, if the changes seem
>> acceptable to you?
> 
> I see why you are asking but I am not comfortable with aiming for
> the merge window that is on-going and could close at any moment.
> I have seen recenly too many patches that should work fine have
> some odd minor issue.  Like an extra _ in a label used in an ifdef
> that resulted in memory stomps.Linus might be more brave but i would
> rather wait until the next merge window, so I don't need to worry about
> spoiling anyone's holidays with a typo someone over looked.

I'll just gently ask if you'll reconsider and take another look at the
patches. They patches are very small, and don't change any existing
behavior. And if we see a problem in the next weeks they could be pulled.
In the meantime, I'd be aiming to publicize this API somewhat, so that we
might get some eyeballs to spot design bugs. But, I do understand your
position, if the answer is still "not for this merge window".

> At first glance these patches seem reasonable. I don't see any problem
> with the ioctls you have added.
> 
> That said I have a question.  Should we provide a more direct way to
> find the answer to your question?  Something like the access system
> call?
> 
> I think a more direct answer would be more maintainable in the long run
> as it does not bind tools to specific implementation details in the
> future.  Which could allow us to account for LSM policies and the like.

My thoughts:

1. Regarding NS_GET_NSTYPE...  It always struck me as a little odd
   that you could ask setns() to check if the supplied FD referred
   to a certain type of NS (and thus, in a round about way, setns()
   gives us the same information as NS_GET_NSTYPE), but you can't
   directly ask what the NS type is. The fact that setns() has this
   facility suggests that there could be other uses for the operation
   "tell me what type of NS this FD refers to". 

2. Regarding NS_GET_CREATOR_UID... There are defined rules about what
   this UID means with respect to capabilities in a namespace. It's
   not an implementation detail, as I understand it. Also in terms of
   introspecting to try to understand the structure of namespaces on
   a running system, knowing this UID is useful in and of itself.

3. NS_GET_NSTYPE and NS_GET_CREATOR_UID solve my problem, but
   obviously your idea would make life simpler for user space.
   Am I correct to understand that you mean an API that takes
   three pieces of info: a PID, a capability, and an fd referring
   to a /proc/PID/ns/xxx, and tells us whether PID has the specified
   capability for operations in the specified namespace?

Cheers,

Michael

-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)]

Hello Eric,

On 12/19/2016 11:53 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:
> 
>> Eric,
>>
>> The code proposed in this patch series is pretty small. Is there any
>> chance we could make the 4.10 merge window, if the changes seem
>> acceptable to you?
> 
> I see why you are asking but I am not comfortable with aiming for
> the merge window that is on-going and could close at any moment.
> I have seen recenly too many patches that should work fine have
> some odd minor issue.  Like an extra _ in a label used in an ifdef
> that resulted in memory stomps.Linus might be more brave but i would
> rather wait until the next merge window, so I don't need to worry about
> spoiling anyone's holidays with a typo someone over looked.

I'll just gently ask if you'll reconsider and take another look at the
patches. They patches are very small, and don't change any existing
behavior. And if we see a problem in the next weeks they could be pulled.
In the meantime, I'd be aiming to publicize this API somewhat, so that we
might get some eyeballs to spot design bugs. But, I do understand your
position, if the answer is still "not for this merge window".

> At first glance these patches seem reasonable. I don't see any problem
> with the ioctls you have added.
> 
> That said I have a question.  Should we provide a more direct way to
> find the answer to your question?  Something like the access system
> call?
> 
> I think a more direct answer would be more maintainable in the long run
> as it does not bind tools to specific implementation details in the
> future.  Which could allow us to account for LSM policies and the like.

My thoughts:

1. Regarding NS_GET_NSTYPE...  It always struck me as a little odd
   that you could ask setns() to check if the supplied FD referred
   to a certain type of NS (and thus, in a round about way, setns()
   gives us the same information as NS_GET_NSTYPE), but you can't
   directly ask what the NS type is. The fact that setns() has this
   facility suggests that there could be other uses for the operation
   "tell me what type of NS this FD refers to". 

2. Regarding NS_GET_CREATOR_UID... There are defined rules about what
   this UID means with respect to capabilities in a namespace. It's
   not an implementation detail, as I understand it. Also in terms of
   introspecting to try to understand the structure of namespaces on
   a running system, knowing this UID is useful in and of itself.

3. NS_GET_NSTYPE and NS_GET_CREATOR_UID solve my problem, but
   obviously your idea would make life simpler for user space.
   Am I correct to understand that you mean an API that takes
   three pieces of info: a PID, a capability, and an fd referring
   to a /proc/PID/ns/xxx, and tells us whether PID has the specified
   capability for operations in the specified namespace?

Cheers,

Michael

-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Eric W. Biederman]

"Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

> Eric,
>
> The code proposed in this patch series is pretty small. Is there any
> chance we could make the 4.10 merge window, if the changes seem
> acceptable to you?

I see why you are asking but I am not comfortable with aiming for
the merge window that is on-going and could close at any moment.
I have seen recenly too many patches that should work fine have
some odd minor issue.  Like an extra _ in a label used in an ifdef
that resulted in memory stomps.Linus might be more brave but i would
rather wait until the next merge window, so I don't need to worry about
spoiling anyone's holidays with a typo someone over looked.

At first glance these patches seem reasonable. I don't see any problem
with the ioctls you have added.

That said I have a question.  Should we provide a more direct way to
find the answer to your question?  Something like the access system
call?

I think a more direct answer would be more maintainable in the long run
as it does not bind tools to specific implementation details in the
future.  Which could allow us to account for LSM policies and the like.

Eric

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Add further ioctl() operations for namespace discovery

[Eric W. Biederman]

"Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)"  writes:

> Eric,
>
> The code proposed in this patch series is pretty small. Is there any
> chance we could make the 4.10 merge window, if the changes seem
> acceptable to you?

I see why you are asking but I am not comfortable with aiming for
the merge window that is on-going and could close at any moment.
I have seen recenly too many patches that should work fine have
some odd minor issue.  Like an extra _ in a label used in an ifdef
that resulted in memory stomps.Linus might be more brave but i would
rather wait until the next merge window, so I don't need to worry about
spoiling anyone's holidays with a typo someone over looked.

At first glance these patches seem reasonable. I don't see any problem
with the ioctls you have added.

That said I have a question.  Should we provide a more direct way to
find the answer to your question?  Something like the access system
call?

I think a more direct answer would be more maintainable in the long run
as it does not bind tools to specific implementation details in the
future.  Which could allow us to account for LSM policies and the like.

Eric