I appreciate the repplies. I will try to test Charliecloud to see what is what...
On Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 10:37 Fulcomer, Samuel <samuel_fulco...@brown.edu> wrote: > > > Thanks! and I'll watch the video... > > Privileged containers!.... never!.... > > On Thu, Sep 19, 2019 at 9:06 PM Michael Jennings <m...@lanl.gov> wrote: > >> On Thursday, 19 September 2019, at 19:27:38 (-0400), >> Fulcomer, Samuel wrote: >> >> > I obviously haven't been keeping up with any security concerns over the >> use >> > of Singularity. In a 2-3 sentence nutshell, what are they? >> >> So before I do that, if you have a few minutes, I do think you'll find >> it worth your time to go to https://youtu.be/H6VrjowOOF4?t=2361 (it'll >> start about 39 minutes in) and watch at least those next 8 or so minutes. >> I go into some detail about the security track records of multiple >> container runtimes and provide factual data so that folks can make their >> own risk assessments rather than just giving my personal opinion. (The >> video does cut off the right side of the slides, but the slide deck is >> available at >> https://permalink.lanl.gov/object/tr?what=info:lanl-repo/lareport/LA-UR-19-22663 >> for anyone interested.) >> >> If you really don't want to watch the video, though, I can provide a few >> of the data points. >> >> First off, if you have not read it before, you really should read >> Matthias Gerstner's assessment after doing a code review and security >> audit on Singularity 2.6.0 to see if it could be packaged for SuSE: >> https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2018/12/12/2 >> The quotes I used on the slide for my talk came from comments he made in >> the linked SuSE Bugzilla bug -- which, for unknown reasons, was >> re-locked by SuSE after previously being unlocked once the bug report >> was public! -- regarding whether or not, and under what constraints, to >> include and support Singularity on SuSE. Matthias is a widely respected >> security expert in the OSS community, so I trust his assessment and >> insight. And his audit alone found 5 or 6 CVE-worthy vulnerabilities at >> once. >> >> Additionally, as I mentioned in the video, during the 3-year period >> 2016-2018, there were at least 17 different vulnerabilities found in >> Singularity. Also, of the 9 releases they did during 2018, 7 of those >> were security releases to fix vulnerabilities (and frequently more than >> 1 at a time). That's...not great. Especially in an environment like >> ours where saying "security is important" is an understatement of >> nuclear proportions! ;-) >> >> And finally, while we were hopeful that the rewrite in Go (version 3.0 >> and above) would correct the security failings in the code, there've >> already been multiple serious vulnerabilities (all grouped together >> under a single CVE identifier, CVE-2019-11328), at least one of which >> was essentially a replica of one of the flaws fixed in 2.6.0 under >> CVE-2018-12021! And you don't need to take my word for it, either: >> https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/05/16/1 >> >> It's hard to say if the above trend will continue...but not all sites >> can afford to take those kinds of risks. >> >> And while Shifter's security track record is spotless to date, I would >> still summarize the overall lesson to be learned as, "Don't use >> privileged container runtimes. Use user namespaces. That's what >> they're there for." And before anyone yells at me, yes I know >> Singularity advertises user namespace support and non-setuid operation. >> But it doesn't seem to be very widely used or adequately exercised, and >> AFAICT the default mode of operation in both RPMs and build-from-src is >> via setuid binaries. So using a natively unprivileged runtime still >> seems the less risky choice, in my personal assessment. >> >> Yes, I know that was more than a "2-3 sentence nutshell," but hopefully >> it was helpful anyway! :-) >> >> Michael >> >> -- >> Michael E. Jennings <m...@lanl.gov> >> HPC Systems Team, Los Alamos National Laboratory >> Bldg. 03-2327, Rm. 2341 W: +1 (505) 606-0605 >> >