[lxc-devel] [RFC PATCH 00/11] Add support for devtmpfs in user namespaces

[Serge Hallyn]

Quoting Andy Lutomirski (luto at amacapital.net):
> On May 15, 2014 1:26 PM, "Serge E. Hallyn" <serge at hallyn.com> wrote:
> >
> > Quoting Richard Weinberger (richard at nod.at):
> > > Am 15.05.2014 21:50, schrieb Serge Hallyn:
> > > > Quoting Richard Weinberger (richard.weinberger at gmail.com):
> > > >> On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 4:08 PM, Greg Kroah-Hartman
> > > >> <gregkh at linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> > > >>> Then don't use a container to build such a thing, or fix the build
> > > >>> scripts to not do that :)
> > > >>
> > > >> I second this.
> > > >> To me it looks like some folks try to (ab)use Linux containers
> > > >> for purposes where KVM would much better fit in.
> > > >> Please don't put more complexity into containers. They are already
> > > >> horrible complex
> > > >> and error prone.
> > > >
> > > > I, naturally, disagree :)  The only use case which is inherently not
> > > > valid for containers is running a kernel.  Practically speaking there
> > > > are other things which likely will never be possible, but if someone
> > > > offers a way to do something in containers, "you can't do that in
> > > > containers" is not an apropos response.
> > > >
> > > > "That abstraction is wrong" is certainly valid, as when vpids were
> > > > originally proposed and rejected, resulting in the development of
> > > > pid namespaces.  "We have to work out (x) first" can be valid (and
> > > > I can think of examples here), assuming it's not just trying to hide
> > > > behind a catch-22/chicken-egg problem.
> > > >
> > > > Finally, saying "containers are complex and error prone" is conflating
> > > > several large suites of userspace code and many kernel features which
> > > > support them.  Being more precise would, if the argument is valid,
> > > > lend it a lot more weight.
> > >
> > > We (my company) use Linux containers since 2011 in production. First LXC, now libvirt-lxc.
> > > To understand the internals better I also wrote my own userspace to create/start
> > > containers. There are so many things which can hurt you badly.
> > > With user namespaces we expose a really big attack surface to regular users.
> > > I.e. Suddenly a user is allowed to mount filesystems.
> >
> > That is currently not the case.  They can mount some virtual filesystems
> > and do bind mounts, but cannot mount most real filesystems.  This keeps
> > us protected (for now) from potentially unsafe superblock readers in the
> > kernel.
> >
> > > Ask Andy, he found already lots of nasty things...
> 
> I don't think I have anything brilliant to add to this discussion
> right now, except possibly:
> 
> ISTM that Linux distributions are, in general, vulnerable to all kinds
> of shenanigans that would happen if an untrusted user can cause a
> block device to appear.  That user doesn't need permission to mount it

Interesting point.  This would further suggest that we absolutely must
ensure that a loop device which shows up in the container does not also
show up in the host.

> or even necessarily to change its contents on the fly.
> 
> E.g. what happens if you boot a machine that contains a malicious disk
> image that has the same partition UUID as /?  Nothing good, I imagine.
> 
> So if we're going to go down this road, we really need some way to
> tell the host that certain devices are not trusted.
> 
> --Andy