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Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2017 16:03:53 -0500
From: Stephen Smalley <sds@...ho.nsa.gov>
To: Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>,
        Tetsuo Handa
	 <penguin-kernel@...ove.sakura.ne.jp>
Cc: James Morris <jmorris@...ei.org>,
        linux-security-module
	 <linux-security-module@...r.kernel.org>,
        "kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com"
	 <kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com>,
        Paul Moore <paul@...l-moore.com>
Subject: Re: Re: [RFC PATCH 2/4] security: mark nf ops in
 SELinux and Smack as __ro_after_init

On Mon, 2017-02-13 at 09:29 -0800, Kees Cook wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 3:29 AM, Tetsuo Handa
> <penguin-kernel@...ove.sakura.ne.jp> wrote:
> > 
> > James Morris wrote:
> > > 
> > > Both SELinux and Smack register Netfilter operations during init,
> > > which then don't change.  Mark these ops as __ro_after_init.
> > > 
> > > Signed-off-by: James Morris <james.l.morris@...cle.com>
> > 
> > This patch breaks CONFIG_SECURITY_SELINUX_DISABLE=y +
> > SELINUX=disabled in /etc/selinux/config case,
> > doesn't it? Although I heard that SELinux is planning to remove
> > CONFIG_SECURITY_SELINUX_DISABLE,
> > CONFIG_SECURITY_SELINUX_DISABLE is valid as of current linux-
> > security.git#next .
> 
> We could fold that removal into this series?

I'm personally in favor of removing it, but that support was originally
requested by the Fedora distro folks on the grounds that it is too
painful to manage kernel boot parameters on some platforms, and
therefore they needed an alternative to booting with selinux=0 on the
kernel command line.  The documented way to disable SELinux on such
distros is through the use of /etc/selinux/config SELINUX=disabled,
which relies on this mechanism.  So you'd have to work through removal
with the distro folks.

Maybe in the interim we could just wrap the ro-after-init markings
under a conditional dependent on !CONFIG_SECURITY_SELINUX_DISABLE so
that systems (e.g. Android) that do not rely on this feature could
benefit.

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