Re: [gentoo-hardened] Keeping gentoo-hardened alive

On Sze, Február 13, 2008 13:08, Geoff Kassel wrote:
>
> I like the idea of the SELinux per-application policies. I've never used
> them
> or SELinux, though, so I don't know how effective or simple they are to
> use
> IRL. Anyone else care to comment on this?

Chris PeBenito is the person who probably have the most detailed knowledge
of SELinux here. I think it's more complex to develop a policy for an
application using SELinux, but a well designed framework provides
guidance. Targeted mode offers a chance to create a balance between
security and usability giving the chance for the everyday user to make use
of the technique without having to spend time on the policy or facing with
failing applications.

>
>> I think many of us could contribute to the
>> policy. The hardest task would be to agree on the differences regarding
>> the security requirements. But that could be made configurable also.
>> Configuration intelligence could investigate the contents of the conf
>> directory to tailor the policy to the specific settings...
>
> Hmm... configuration-wise, I'm envisioning a directory tree under
> /etc/grsec
> with per-user and per-application branches (because detailed grsec policy
> files get very big very quickly), so that differences or changes in
> requirements can be managed easily via comparing differences between flat
> files.

We could have something similar to SELinux here. I mean: a policy
structure in directories, which could be used to generate the final policy
file. That would keep the effort in userland.

>
>> I have to regularly revise my policy to keep the box running. I've also
>> ended up loosening the security in order to make the system usable.
>
> As much maligned as Vista's UAC system is, I feel there's one positive
> thing
> about it - it's handy to have a mechanism to notify the user about
> potential

Udev-event based mechanism for eg.

>
> How about a user-configurable UI (something that could be run on a bare
> TTY,
> like, say, tty11, or on any other command line, for that matter) for the
> management system - secured from physical intrusion by sudo-style logins
> for

RSBAC have console type graphical UI for config editing.
I really like the idea of having a separate security officer in RSBAC as
well as the separate authentication system for grsecurity. It's a second
line defense mechanism makes it harder to bypass. But it also makes harder
to an everyday user to easily tamper with the security policy. I think
this second line should be kept.

< snip >
>
> Evasive procedures would have to be controlled and managed centrally by an
> administrator, of course, as the whole system could be compromised if the
> wrong decision is made by a user. But everything else could end up in a
> file
> stored for each user - say in ~/.grsec - which would be referenced by any
> (G)UI access control management clients.

That's way to much for me for now...

Regards,
Dw.


-- 
dr Tóth Attila, Radiológus Szakorvos jelölt, 06-20-825-8057, 06-30-5962-962
Attila Toth MD, Radiologist in Training, [phone], [phone]

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