Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 11 Sep 2006 09:22:34 -0700 (PDT) | From | Casey Schaufler <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH 3/4] security: capabilities patch (version 0.4.4), part 3/4: introduce new capabilities |
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--- Joshua Brindle <method@gentoo.org> wrote:
> These > capabilities are so course grained I just can't see > anyone ever using them.
The granularity of the capabilities in the POSIX DRAFT is targeted at the security policy enforced by the POSIX P1003.1 interface standard. Anywhere that P1003.1 says "appropriate privilege" P1003.1e identifies what that privilege ought to be. The capability specification also addresses the audit, MAC and INF portions of P1003.1e. Interfaces that were outside the scope of P1003.1 at the time (including, alas, sockets and SVIPC) could not be included in P1003.1e by rule. Devices and filesystems, where most of the granularity issues arise, were excluded.
The 1e DRAFT specifies a granularity that is appropriate to the kernel and the policies that the kernel enforces. This is because the capability mechanism is supposed to be a kernel protection scheme for kernel objects. It does not enforce a granularity that is appropriate to a python based web interface for financial management systems. That is an application issue that is much better suited to application controls like RBAC.
Casey Schaufler casey@schaufler-ca.com - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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