ioctl CAP_LINUX_IMMUTABLE is checked in the wrong namespace

Theodore Ts'o tytso at mit.edu
Tue Apr 29 18:35:34 UTC 2014


On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 04:49:14PM +0300, Marian Marinov wrote:
> 
> I'm proposing a fix to this, by replacing the capable(CAP_LINUX_IMMUTABLE)
> check with ns_capable(current_cred()->user_ns, CAP_LINUX_IMMUTABLE).

Um, wouldn't it be better to simply fix the capable() function?

/**
 * capable - Determine if the current task has a superior capability in effect
 * @cap: The capability to be tested for
 *
 * Return true if the current task has the given superior capability currently
 * available for use, false if not.
 *
 * This sets PF_SUPERPRIV on the task if the capability is available on the
 * assumption that it's about to be used.
 */
bool capable(int cap)
{
	return ns_capable(&init_user_ns, cap);
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL(capable);

The documentation states that it is for "the current task", and I
can't imagine any use case, where user namespaces are in effect, where
using init_user_ns would ever make sense.

No?  Otherwise, pretty much every single use of capable() would be
broken, not just this once instances in ext4/ioctl.c.

					- Ted


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