Filesystem capability support makes it possible to do away with (set)uid-0
based privilege and use capabilities instead. That is, with filesystem
support for capabilities but without this present patch, it is (conceptually)
possible to manage a system with capabilities alone and never need to obtain
privilege via (set)uid-0.
Of course, conceptually isn't quite the same as currently possible since few
user applications, certainly not enough to run a viable system, are currently
prepared to leverage capabilities to exercise privilege. Further, many
applications exist that may never get upgraded in this way, and the kernel
will continue to want to support their setuid-0 base privilege needs.
Where pure-capability applications evolve and replace setuid-0 binaries, it is
desirable that there be a mechanisms by which they can contain their
privilege. In addition to leveraging the per-process bounding and inheritable
sets, this should include suppressing the privilege of the uid-0 superuser
from the process' tree of children.
The feature added by this patch can be leveraged to suppress the privilege
associated with (set)uid-0. This suppression requires CAP_SETPCAP to
initiate, and only immediately affects the 'current' process (it is inherited
through fork()/exec()). This reimplementation differs significantly from the
historical support for securebits which was system-wide, unwieldy and which
has ultimately withered to a dead relic in the source of the modern kernel.
With this patch applied a process, that is capable(CAP_SETPCAP), can now drop
all legacy privilege (through uid=0) for itself and all subsequently
fork()'d/exec()'d children with:
prctl(PR_SET_SECUREBITS, 0x2f);
This patch represents a no-op unless CONFIG_SECURITY_FILE_CAPABILITIES is
enabled at configure time.
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix uninitialised var warning]
[serue@us.ibm.com: capabilities: use cap_task_prctl when !CONFIG_SECURITY]
Signed-off-by: Andrew G. Morgan <morgan@kernel.org>
Acked-by: Serge Hallyn <serue@us.ibm.com>
Reviewed-by: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>
Cc: Stephen Smalley <sds@tycho.nsa.gov>
Cc: Paul Moore <paul.moore@hp.com>
Signed-off-by: Serge E. Hallyn <serue@us.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
3898b1b4eb