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-c...
Reviewed-by: Christian Brauner (Microsoft) brauner@kernel.org Reviewed-by: KP Singh kpsingh@kernel.org Signed-off-by: Frederick Lawler fred@cloudflare.com
--- Changes since v4: - Update commit description Changes since v3: - No changes Changes since v2: - Rename create_user_ns hook to userns_create Changes since v1: - Changed commit wording - Moved execution to be after id mapping check - Changed signature to only accept a const struct cred * --- include/linux/lsm_hook_defs.h | 1 + include/linux/lsm_hooks.h | 4 ++++ include/linux/security.h | 6 ++++++ kernel/user_namespace.c | 5 +++++ security/security.c | 5 +++++ 5 files changed, 21 insertions(+)
diff --git a/include/linux/lsm_hook_defs.h b/include/linux/lsm_hook_defs.h index 806448173033..aa7272e83626 100644 --- a/include/linux/lsm_hook_defs.h +++ b/include/linux/lsm_hook_defs.h @@ -224,6 +224,7 @@ LSM_HOOK(int, -ENOSYS, task_prctl, int option, unsigned long arg2, unsigned long arg3, unsigned long arg4, unsigned long arg5) LSM_HOOK(void, LSM_RET_VOID, task_to_inode, struct task_struct *p, struct inode *inode) +LSM_HOOK(int, 0, userns_create, const struct cred *cred) LSM_HOOK(int, 0, ipc_permission, struct kern_ipc_perm *ipcp, short flag) LSM_HOOK(void, LSM_RET_VOID, ipc_getsecid, struct kern_ipc_perm *ipcp, u32 *secid) diff --git a/include/linux/lsm_hooks.h b/include/linux/lsm_hooks.h index 84a0d7e02176..2e11a2a22ed1 100644 --- a/include/linux/lsm_hooks.h +++ b/include/linux/lsm_hooks.h @@ -806,6 +806,10 @@ * security attributes, e.g. for /proc/pid inodes. * @p contains the task_struct for the task. * @inode contains the inode structure for the inode. + * @userns_create: + * Check permission prior to creating a new user namespace. + * @cred points to prepared creds. + * Return 0 if successful, otherwise < 0 error code. * * Security hooks for Netlink messaging. * diff --git a/include/linux/security.h b/include/linux/security.h index 1bc362cb413f..767802fe9bfa 100644 --- a/include/linux/security.h +++ b/include/linux/security.h @@ -437,6 +437,7 @@ int security_task_kill(struct task_struct *p, struct kernel_siginfo *info, int security_task_prctl(int option, unsigned long arg2, unsigned long arg3, unsigned long arg4, unsigned long arg5); void security_task_to_inode(struct task_struct *p, struct inode *inode); +int security_create_user_ns(const struct cred *cred); int security_ipc_permission(struct kern_ipc_perm *ipcp, short flag); void security_ipc_getsecid(struct kern_ipc_perm *ipcp, u32 *secid); int security_msg_msg_alloc(struct msg_msg *msg); @@ -1194,6 +1195,11 @@ static inline int security_task_prctl(int option, unsigned long arg2, static inline void security_task_to_inode(struct task_struct *p, struct inode *inode) { }
+static inline int security_create_user_ns(const struct cred *cred) +{ + return 0; +} + static inline int security_ipc_permission(struct kern_ipc_perm *ipcp, short flag) { diff --git a/kernel/user_namespace.c b/kernel/user_namespace.c index 5481ba44a8d6..3f464bbda0e9 100644 --- a/kernel/user_namespace.c +++ b/kernel/user_namespace.c @@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ #include <linux/highuid.h> #include <linux/cred.h> #include <linux/securebits.h> +#include <linux/security.h> #include <linux/keyctl.h> #include <linux/key-type.h> #include <keys/user-type.h> @@ -113,6 +114,10 @@ int create_user_ns(struct cred *new) !kgid_has_mapping(parent_ns, group)) goto fail_dec;
+ ret = security_create_user_ns(new); + if (ret < 0) + goto fail_dec; + ret = -ENOMEM; ns = kmem_cache_zalloc(user_ns_cachep, GFP_KERNEL); if (!ns) diff --git a/security/security.c b/security/security.c index 14d30fec8a00..1e60c4b570ec 100644 --- a/security/security.c +++ b/security/security.c @@ -1909,6 +1909,11 @@ void security_task_to_inode(struct task_struct *p, struct inode *inode) call_void_hook(task_to_inode, p, inode); }
+int security_create_user_ns(const struct cred *cred) +{ + return call_int_hook(userns_create, 0, cred); +} + int security_ipc_permission(struct kern_ipc_perm *ipcp, short flag) { return call_int_hook(ipc_permission, 0, ipcp, flag);