namei: LOOKUP_BENEATH: O_BENEATH-like scoped resolution
authorAleksa Sarai <cyphar@cyphar.com>
Fri, 6 Dec 2019 14:13:33 +0000 (01:13 +1100)
committerAl Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Mon, 9 Dec 2019 00:09:42 +0000 (19:09 -0500)
commitadb21d2b526f7f196b2f3fdca97d80ba05dd14a0
tree0e8416805a066190f66d1279739050bf7133953f
parent72ba29297e1439efaa54d9125b866ae9d15df339
namei: LOOKUP_BENEATH: O_BENEATH-like scoped resolution

/* Background. */
There are many circumstances when userspace wants to resolve a path and
ensure that it doesn't go outside of a particular root directory during
resolution. Obvious examples include archive extraction tools, as well as
other security-conscious userspace programs. FreeBSD spun out O_BENEATH
from their Capsicum project[1,2], so it also seems reasonable to
implement similar functionality for Linux.

This is part of a refresh of Al's AT_NO_JUMPS patchset[3] (which was a
variation on David Drysdale's O_BENEATH patchset[4], which in turn was
based on the Capsicum project[5]).

/* Userspace API. */
LOOKUP_BENEATH will be exposed to userspace through openat2(2).

/* Semantics. */
Unlike most other LOOKUP flags (most notably LOOKUP_FOLLOW),
LOOKUP_BENEATH applies to all components of the path.

With LOOKUP_BENEATH, any path component which attempts to "escape" the
starting point of the filesystem lookup (the dirfd passed to openat)
will yield -EXDEV. Thus, all absolute paths and symlinks are disallowed.

Due to a security concern brought up by Jann[6], any ".." path
components are also blocked. This restriction will be lifted in a future
patch, but requires more work to ensure that permitting ".." is done
safely.

Magic-link jumps are also blocked, because they can beam the path lookup
across the starting point. It would be possible to detect and block
only the "bad" crossings with path_is_under() checks, but it's unclear
whether it makes sense to permit magic-links at all. However, userspace
is recommended to pass LOOKUP_NO_MAGICLINKS if they want to ensure that
magic-link crossing is entirely disabled.

/* Testing. */
LOOKUP_BENEATH is tested as part of the openat2(2) selftests.

[1]: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D2808
[2]: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D17547
[3]: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20170429220414.GT29622@ZenIV.linux.org.uk/
[4]: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/1415094884-18349-1-git-send-email-drysdale@google.com/
[5]: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/1404124096-21445-1-git-send-email-drysdale@google.com/
[6]: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAG48ez1jzNvxB+bfOBnERFGp=oMM0vHWuLD6EULmne3R6xa53w@mail.gmail.com/

Cc: Christian Brauner <christian.brauner@ubuntu.com>
Suggested-by: David Drysdale <drysdale@google.com>
Suggested-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Suggested-by: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Suggested-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Aleksa Sarai <cyphar@cyphar.com>
Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
fs/namei.c
include/linux/namei.h