projects / linux-2.6-block.git / blame
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| 593733ab | 1 | ===================== |
| 8802f616 | 2 | NetLabel Introduction |
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3 | ===================== |
| 4 | ||
| 8802f616 PM |
5 | Paul Moore, paul.moore@hp.com |
| 6 | ||
| 7 | August 2, 2006 | |
| 8 | ||
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9 | Overview |
| 10 | ======== | |
| 8802f616 PM |
11 | |
| 12 | NetLabel is a mechanism which can be used by kernel security modules to attach | |
| 13 | security attributes to outgoing network packets generated from user space | |
| 14 | applications and read security attributes from incoming network packets. It | |
| 15 | is composed of three main components, the protocol engines, the communication | |
| 16 | layer, and the kernel security module API. | |
| 17 | ||
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18 | Protocol Engines |
| 19 | ================ | |
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20 | |
| 21 | The protocol engines are responsible for both applying and retrieving the | |
| 22 | network packet's security attributes. If any translation between the network | |
| 23 | security attributes and those on the host are required then the protocol | |
| 24 | engine will handle those tasks as well. Other kernel subsystems should | |
| 25 | refrain from calling the protocol engines directly, instead they should use | |
| 26 | the NetLabel kernel security module API described below. | |
| 27 | ||
| 28 | Detailed information about each NetLabel protocol engine can be found in this | |
| a7ddcea5 | 29 | directory. |
| 8802f616 | 30 | |
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31 | Communication Layer |
| 32 | =================== | |
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33 | |
| 34 | The communication layer exists to allow NetLabel configuration and monitoring | |
| 35 | from user space. The NetLabel communication layer uses a message based | |
| 36 | protocol built on top of the Generic NETLINK transport mechanism. The exact | |
| 37 | formatting of these NetLabel messages as well as the Generic NETLINK family | |
| 59c51591 | 38 | names can be found in the 'net/netlabel/' directory as comments in the |
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39 | header files as well as in 'include/net/netlabel.h'. |
| 40 | ||
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41 | Security Module API |
| 42 | =================== | |
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43 | |
| 44 | The purpose of the NetLabel security module API is to provide a protocol | |
| 45 | independent interface to the underlying NetLabel protocol engines. In addition | |
| 46 | to protocol independence, the security module API is designed to be completely | |
| 47 | LSM independent which should allow multiple LSMs to leverage the same code | |
| 48 | base. | |
| 49 | ||
| 50 | Detailed information about the NetLabel security module API can be found in the | |
| 51 | 'include/net/netlabel.h' header file as well as the 'lsm_interface.txt' file | |
| 52 | found in this directory. |