Overview
By the end of this article you should be able to answer the following questions:
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– targeted: this policy type is by far the most commonly used worldwide.
– minimum: this is a stripped down version of the targeted policy. It is mainly used for low spec machines that doesn’t have enough power (e.g. cpu speed) to cope with targeted SELinux.
– mls: this is a much more beefed up version of targeted and is sometimes used by governments.
/etc/selinux/
# however by mls and minimum isn’t installed by default.
$ yum list available | grep po-typelicy | grep -E ‘mls|minimum’
the “type” security attribute
Type Enforcement Policy
domain
User_u:Role_r:Type_t:Level_s
$ seinfo –-type
$ seinfo –-user
$ seinfo –-role
$ seinfo –-sensitivity
unconfined_t
unconfined_t # this includes the root user,
# but excludes service accounts.
Because that’s how the targeted policy defined them as.
These objects (e.g. users) have unrestricted access, i.e. they are not restricted by the SELinux (if SELinux is using the targeted policy). Instead they are only restricted by DAC layers.
unconfined_t # that’s because the inherit this value from the user.
Earlier we mentioned that an SELinux policy is a really big text book that contains policy rules. In RHEL, there are actually 3 text books that are available to choose from, as indicated here:
$ cat /etc/selinux/config # This file controls the state of SELinux on the system. # SELINUX= can take one of these three values: # enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced. # permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing. # disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded. SELINUX=permissive # SELINUXTYPE= can take one of these two values: # targeted - Targeted processes are protected, # minimum - Modification of targeted policy. Only selected processes are protected. # mls - Multi Level Security protection. SELINUXTYPE=targeted
here’s a brief overview of each of them:
- targeted – this policy type is by far the most commonly used worldwide.
- minimum – this is a stripped down version of the targeted policy. It is mainly used for low spec machines that doesn’t have enough power (e.g. cpu speed) to cope with targeted SELinux.
- mls – this is a much more beefed up version of targeted and is sometimes used by governments.
All your policy types are contained in the following directory:
$ ls -l /etc/selinux/ total 12 -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 548 Jun 19 19:43 config -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 2321 Jun 9 2014 semanage.conf drwxr-xr-x. 6 root root 4096 Jun 19 19:44 targeted
As you can see, we only have the targeted-policy installed at the moment. To install the other ones, you do:
$ yum list available | grep policy | grep -E 'mls|minimum' selinux-policy-minimum.noarch 3.13.1-23.el7_1.7 updates selinux-policy-mls.noarch 3.13.1-23.el7_1.7 updates $ yum install selinux-policy-minimum selinux-policy-mls -y . . . $ ls -l /etc/selinux/ total 20 -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 548 Jun 19 19:43 config drwxr-xr-x. 6 root root 4096 Jun 20 07:31 minimum drwxr-xr-x. 7 root root 4096 Jun 20 07:30 mls -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 2321 Jun 9 2014 semanage.conf drwxr-xr-x. 6 root root 4096 Jun 19 19:44 targeted
Each of these folders contains modules that are dynamically loaded into the kernel as and when the kernel needs them. As well as dynamically unloading them too.
The main difference between each policy type is which particular security attribute type it uses as the decider for determining access.
The targeted policy type
The targeted policy is by far the most commonly used type that is in use today. That’s why it comes preinstalled by default, whereas the others require manually installing them first before you can use them.
The targeted policy primarily makes use of the “type” security attribute, This attribute is used as the main deciding facter on whether one object (e.g. process) can access another (e.g. file).
This technique of using the “targeted policy” security attribute as the main deciding facter is often referred to as the “Type Enforcement Policy“, or TE policy for short.
Process “domains”
When we talk about processes, we sometimes refer to the type security attribute as a “domain”, this is a way that allows us to refer to a group of processes.
For example:
$ ps -efZ | grep crond
system_u:system_r:crond_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 root 662 1 0 07:20 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/crond -n
system_u:system_r:crond_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 root 671 1 0 07:20 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/atd -f
unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 root 2672 1663 0 08:01 pts/0 00:00:00 grep --color=auto crond
Here we say both crond and atd processes are running under the cron_t domain.
This means that the crond process can interact with the atd process if it wants’ to. But it can’t interact with processes of other domains, such as the following:
$ ps -efZ | grep -E 'lvm_t|httpd_t|sshd_t' | grep -v grep
system_u:system_r:lvm_t:s0 root 502 1 0 07:20 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/lvmetad -f
system_u:system_r:httpd_t:s0 root 1304 1 0 07:20 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
system_u:system_r:sshd_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 root 1321 1 0 07:20 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/sshd -D
system_u:system_r:httpd_t:s0 apache 1407 1304 0 07:20 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
system_u:system_r:httpd_t:s0 apache 1408 1304 0 07:20 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
system_u:system_r:httpd_t:s0 apache 1409 1304 0 07:20 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
system_u:system_r:httpd_t:s0 apache 1410 1304 0 07:20 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
system_u:system_r:httpd_t:s0 apache 1411 1304 0 07:20 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
SELinux Attributes
Everything that exists on a machine, has a security context assigned to it.
As mentioned earlier, a security context is a colon-delimited string of 4 security attributes, which we will cover in more detail later. There are 4 types of SELinux attributes:
- User
- Role
- Type
- Level
SELinux contexts are always shown in a colon-delimited format and sequence User_u:Role_r:Type_t:Level_s. The suffix makes it easier to make out why which type each of the security attribute is, in case you forget what the ordering is.
The “type” security attribute, is by far the most important one, out of the 4 security attributes
That’s because the most commonly used policy type, the “targeted” policy, is a Type Enforcement based policy, i.e. it decides whether one object (e.g. process) can access another object (e.g. file) based mainly on their “type” security attribute value.
For example let’s take a look at the security context for the apache process, along with apache related files and folders :
$ ps -efZ | grep httpd
system_u:system_r:httpd_t:s0 root 1304 1 0 07:20 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
system_u:system_r:httpd_t:s0 apache 1407 1304 0 07:20 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
system_u:system_r:httpd_t:s0 apache 1408 1304 0 07:20 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
system_u:system_r:httpd_t:s0 apache 1409 1304 0 07:20 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
system_u:system_r:httpd_t:s0 apache 1410 1304 0 07:20 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
system_u:system_r:httpd_t:s0 apache 1411 1304 0 07:20 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
$ ls -lZ /etc/httpd/
drwxr-xr-x. root root system_u:object_r:httpd_config_t:s0 conf
drwxr-xr-x. root root system_u:object_r:httpd_config_t:s0 conf.d
drwxr-xr-x. root root system_u:object_r:httpd_config_t:s0 conf.modules.d
lrwxrwxrwx. root root system_u:object_r:httpd_log_t:s0 logs -> ../../var/log/httpd
lrwxrwxrwx. root root system_u:object_r:httpd_modules_t:s0 modules -> ../../usr/lib64/httpd/modules
lrwxrwxrwx. root root system_u:object_r:httpd_config_t:s0 run -> /run/httpd
Here the apache processes all have the “httpd_t” security attribute. So in the targeted policy there will be a policy rule for the httpd_t selinux attribute and it will state that objects with the “httpd_t” can access any objects that has the type security attribute of any of the following:
- httpd_config_t
- httpd_log_t
- httpd_modules_t
- ….etc.
This approach means that an http related object is prevented from interacting with a unrelated object, e.g. cron related. As a result that means that if httpd/apache does get compromise, then the damage is only limited to itself, so things like ftp, cron, sshd,…etc doesn’t also get compromised.
To get an idea of how many “type” security attribute values exists, you can do:
$ whatis seinfo seinfo (1) - SELinux policy query tool $ seinfo -t | head Types: 4620 bluetooth_conf_t cmirrord_exec_t colord_exec_t foghorn_exec_t jacorb_port_t pki_ra_exec_t pki_ra_lock_t sosreport_t $ seinfo -t | wc -l 4622
The “unconfined_t” type security attribute
$ id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root) context=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023
$ ps -efZ | grep unconfined_t | head
unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 root 1659 1321 0 07:24 ? 00:00:00 sshd: root@pts/0
unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 root 1663 1659 0 07:24 pts/0 00:00:00 -bash
unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 root 2800 1663 0 08:11 pts/0 00:00:00 ps -efZ
unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 root 2801 1663 0 08:11 pts/0 00:00:00 grep --color=auto unconfined_t
unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 root 2802 1663 0 08:11 pts/0 00:00:00 head
Any objects of this are essentially not restricted by SELinux in any way (for the given policy type that’s being used). In other words you can think of SELinux being disabled for these objects. The only restrictions that these objects abide by are the DAC (Discretionary Access Control) layer restrictions and not MAC (Mandatroy Access Control).
Hence if a policy (usually the targeted policy) doesn’t have a policy rule written for a particular object, then they automatically get assigned the unconfined_t security attribute.
One particular thing to bear in mind, is that the targeted policy also assign the “unconfined_t” to nearly all user accounts.
Any object that doesn’t have an selinux policy rules that assigns it a type security value, will automatically get assigned to with the type security attribute value of “unconfined_t” type. Here are a few such objects. Objects that belong to the unconfined_t domain, can access each other, but more importantly access any other object on the entire system!
Objects belonging to the unconfined_t domain sounds like a huge security loophole, but that’s not really the case. That’s because SELinux original objective is to secure internet facing processes (because they are vulnerable to attacks), and ensuring they are secure rather than securing all the internal going ons. It also secures. SELinux also secures processes that start up at boot, in case one of these processes is compromised and evil.
Objects of this domain effectively are not restricted by SELinux and are subject to only Discretionary Access Control (DAC), and not MAC (which is provided by SELinux).
Also all user accounts (e.g. user accounted created by using the “useradd” command) including the root user, belong to the unconfined_t domain, that’s because that’s how it is defined in the “targeted” policy type. Consequently this means that any processes generated by a user automatically inherits all the user’s selinux attributes:
$ id uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root) context=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 $ id -Z unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 $ ps -ef | grep grep root 5969 1662 0 00:43 pts/0 00:00:00 grep --color=auto grep
However unconfined_t is just a name to represent a domain that is completely SELinux disabled. There are actually a lot more totally unconfined domains, and you can view a full list of them using the seinfo command:
$ seinfo --help Usage: seinfo [OPTIONS] [EXPRESSION] [POLICY ...] Print information about the components of a SELinux policy. EXPRESSIONS: -c[NAME], --class[=NAME] print object classes --sensitivity[=NAME] print sensitivities --category[=NAME] print categories -t[NAME], --type[=NAME] print types (no aliases or attributes) -a[NAME], --attribute[=NAME] print type attributes -r[NAME], --role[=NAME] print roles -u[NAME], --user[=NAME] print users -b[NAME], --bool[=NAME] print conditional booleans --constrain print constrain statements --initialsid[=NAME] print initial SIDs --fs_use[=TYPE] print fs_use statements --genfscon[=TYPE] print genfscon statements --netifcon[=NAME] print netif contexts --nodecon[=ADDR] print node contexts --permissive print permissive types --polcap print policy capabilities --portcon[=PORT] print port contexts --protocol=PROTO specify a protocol for portcons --all print all of the above OPTIONS: -x, --expand show more info for specified components --stats print useful policy statistics -l, --line-breaks print line breaks in constrain statements -h, --help print this help text and exit -V, --version print version information and exit For component options, if NAME is provided, then only show info for NAME. Specifying a name is most useful when used with the -x option. If no option is provided, display useful policy statistics (-s). The default source policy, or if that is unavailable the default binary policy, will be opened if no policy is provided.
So based on this we do:
$ seinfo --attribute=unconfined_domain_type -x
unconfined_domain_type
sosreport_t
bootloader_t
devicekit_power_t
virt_qemu_ga_unconfined_t
nova_conductor_t
dirsrvadmin_unconfined_script_t
timemaster_t
nova_objectstore_t
certmonger_unconfined_t
unconfined_cronjob_t
unconfined_sendmail_t
virtd_lxc_t
abrt_handle_event_t
setfiles_mac_t
initrc_t
fsadm_t
lvm_t
rpm_t
wine_t
cinder_scheduler_t
unconfined_dbusd_t
unconfined_mount_t
realmd_consolehelper_t
rtas_errd_t
preupgrade_t
authconfig_t
snapperd_t
vmware_host_t
puppetagent_t
vmtools_helper_t
phc2sys_t
pegasus_openlmi_unconfined_t
prelink_t
vmtools_t
anaconda_t
cinder_volume_t
boinc_project_t
cinder_api_t
cloud_init_t
rpm_script_t
system_cronjob_t
openshift_initrc_t
samba_unconfined_net_t
pki_tomcat_script_t
kdumpctl_t
unconfined_service_t
devicekit_disk_t
zabbix_script_t
firstboot_t
keepalived_unconfined_script_t
samba_unconfined_script_t
nagios_eventhandler_plugin_t
httpd_unconfined_script_t
openvpn_unconfined_script_t
depmod_t
insmod_t
kernel_t
livecd_t
realmd_t
tomcat_t
watchdog_unconfined_t
clvmd_t
crond_t
inetd_t
init_t
mount_t
ptp4l_t
tuned_t
udev_t
virtd_t
nagios_unconfined_plugin_t
pegasus_openlmi_logicalfile_t
devicekit_t
inetd_child_t
unconfined_munin_plugin_t
semanage_t
sge_shepherd_t
xdm_unconfined_t
unconfined_t
cluster_t
openwsman_t
install_t
sge_job_t
xserver_t
condor_startd_t
cinder_backup_t
See also:
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/SELinux