From: Alyssa Ross <hi@alyssa.is>
To: Demi Marie Obenour <demiobenour@gmail.com>
Cc: Spectrum OS Development <devel@spectrum-os.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] host/roots: Sandbox xdg-desktop-portal-spectrum-host
Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2025 11:52:41 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <877bup2v46.fsf@alyssa.is> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <515ff0f4-2ab3-46de-8d1e-5c66a93c6ede@gmail.com>
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 4512 bytes --]
Demi Marie Obenour <demiobenour@gmail.com> writes:
> On 12/13/25 20:39, Alyssa Ross wrote:
>> Demi Marie Obenour <demiobenour@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> On 12/13/25 16:42, Alyssa Ross wrote:
>>>> Demi Marie Obenour <demiobenour@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> On 12/13/25 14:12, Alyssa Ross wrote:
>>>>>> Demi Marie Obenour <demiobenour@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It is quite possible that these Landlock rules are unnecessarily
>>>>>>> permissive, but all of the paths to which read and execute access is
>>>>>>> granted are part of the root filesystem and therefore assumed to be
>>>>>>> public knowledge. Removing access from any of them would only increase
>>>>>>> the risk of accidental breakage in the future, and would not provide any
>>>>>>> security improvements. seccomp *could* provide some improvements, but
>>>>>>> the effort needed is too high for now.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Signed-off-by: Demi Marie Obenour <demiobenour@gmail.com>
>>>>>>> ---
>>>>>>> .../template/data/service/xdg-desktop-portal-spectrum-host/run | 8 ++++++++
>>>>>>> 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Are you sure this is working as intended? There's no rule allowing
>>>>>> access to Cloud Hypervisor's VSOCK socket, and yet it still seems to be
>>>>>> able to access that. Don't you need to set a rule that *restricts*
>>>>>> filesystem access and then add holes? Did you ever see this deny
>>>>>> anything?
>>>>>
>>>>> 'man 1 setpriv' states that '--landlock-access fs' blocks all
>>>>> filesystem access unless a subsequent --landlock-rule permits it.
>>>>> I tried running with no --landlock-rule flags and the execve of
>>>>> xdg-desktop-portal-spectrum-host failed as expected.
>>>>>
>>>>> The socket is passed over stdin, and I'm pretty sure Landlock
>>>>> doesn't restrict using an already-open file descriptor.
>>>>> xdg-desktop-portal-spectrum-host does need to find the path to the
>>>>> socket, but I don't think it ever accesses that path.
>>>>
>>>> I've been looking into this a bit myself, and from what I can tell
>>>> Landlock just doesn't restrict connecting to sockets at all, even if
>>>> they're inside directories that would otherwise be inaccessible. It's
>>>> able to connect to both Cloud Hypervisor's VSOCK socket and the D-Bus
>>>> socket even with a maximally restrictive landlock rule. So you were
>>>> right after all, sorry!
>>>
>>> That's not good at all! It's a trivial sandbox escape in so many cases.
>>> For instance, with access to D-Bus I can just call `systemd-run`.
>>>
>>> I'm CCing the Landlock and LSM mailing lists because if you are
>>> correct, then this is a bad security hole.
>>
>> I don't find it that surprising given the way landlock works. "connect"
>> (to a non-abstract AF_UNIX socket) is not an operation there's a
>> landlock action for, and it's not like the other actions care about
>> access to parent directories and the like — I was able to execute a
>> program via a symlink after only giving access to the symlink's target,
>> without any access to the directory containing the symlink or the
>> symlink itself, for example. Landlock, as I understand it, is intended
>> to block a specified set of operations (on particular file hierarchies),
>> rather than to completely prevent access to those hierarchies like
>> permissions or mount namespaces could, so the lack of a way to block
>> connecting to a socket is more of a missing feature than a security
>> hole.
>
> 'man 7 unix' states:
>
> On Linux, connecting to a stream socket object requires write
> permission on that socket; sending a datagram to a datagram socket
> likewise requires write permission on that socket.
>
> Landlock is definitely being inconsistent with DAC here. Also, this
> allows real-world sandbox breakouts. On systemd systems, the simplest
> way to escape is to use systemd-run to execute arbitrary commands.
(UnCCing the landlock and LSM lists because I don't think they're going
to get much from this.)
Yes, Landlock is inconsistent with DAC. They are two different
mechanisms. "Write permission" is not a Landlock concept ("write file"
is, but it's specifically for files), and I don't think Landlock is
intended to be a complete sandbox all on its own. It is a mechanism to
restrict specific, enumerated operations, and it is working here as
described. Nowhere is it promised that turning on the whole set of
restrictions gets you a complete sandbox.
[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 227 bytes --]
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2025-12-14 10:53 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 13+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2025-12-13 0:00 [PATCH] host/roots: Sandbox xdg-desktop-portal-spectrum-host Demi Marie Obenour
2025-12-13 19:12 ` Alyssa Ross
2025-12-13 21:21 ` Demi Marie Obenour
2025-12-13 21:42 ` Alyssa Ross
2025-12-14 0:22 ` Demi Marie Obenour
2025-12-14 0:28 ` Alyssa Ross
2025-12-14 1:39 ` Alyssa Ross
2025-12-14 4:49 ` Demi Marie Obenour
2025-12-14 10:52 ` Alyssa Ross [this message]
2025-12-14 19:50 ` Mickaël Salaün
2025-12-15 8:20 ` Günther Noack
2025-12-15 8:54 ` Demi Marie Obenour
2025-12-15 11:27 ` Mickaël Salaün
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=877bup2v46.fsf@alyssa.is \
--to=hi@alyssa.is \
--cc=demiobenour@gmail.com \
--cc=devel@spectrum-os.org \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this public inbox
https://spectrum-os.org/git/crosvm
https://spectrum-os.org/git/doc
https://spectrum-os.org/git/mktuntap
https://spectrum-os.org/git/nixpkgs
https://spectrum-os.org/git/spectrum
https://spectrum-os.org/git/ucspi-vsock
https://spectrum-os.org/git/www
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).