Re: Proposal "LUID"

From: Linda Walsh (law@sgi.com)
Date: Sun Apr 16 2000 - 13:10:31 EST


Alan Cox wrote:
> > subvert the mechanism. Being 'root', with no CAP's, I could probably write to
> > /dev/mem or /dev/kmem I would think. So we can't get too smug about protection.
>
> The intention of CAP_SYS_RAWIO is that it takes away _all_ ability to talk
> directly to hardware. That includes /dev/mem and /dev/kmem.

---
	Hmmm.  Not that I can say that is "bad", but it does confuse security policy
w/respect to DAC.  Root normally has r/w to the files it owns.  Under
normal circumstances, if I wanted to prevent that on a CAP based system, I'd
assign ownership of raw-io devices to a user 'rawio' with pw '*' and group 'rawio'
with a password.  In that event,
does CAP_SYS_RAWIO override the DAC controls on a file (assuming, of course, that
root is not running with CAP_DAC_OVERRIDE).  I can't think of circumstances
where CAP_SYS_RAWIO is needed if DAC controls are properly configured.  If a sysadmin
who has the 'root' password, if they needed RAWIO, they could be given the 
rawio group password and newgrp to that group -- perform their actions, then
exit.  Sorry to be dense, but are there areas where that wouldn't work?

-l

-- Linda A Walsh | Trust Technology, Core Linux, SGI law@sgi.com | Voice: (650) 933-5338

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