Re: Technical repercussions of grsecurity removal

Miroslav Rovis <miro.rovis-w3I/[email protected]> Mon, 8 May 2017 20:08:07 +0200
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.gentoo.hardened
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
On 170502-10:28+0200, Daniel Cegiełka wrote:
> https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Hardened/Hardened_Kernel_Project
> 
> It closes the topic of our discussion.
> 
And I read all the discussion in gentoo-hardened in regard.

First, I'm a user[1], and I'm trying to continue to keep safe and secure
as I used to be with grsec/PaX.

I figured out only yesterday about this almost two weeks old news, and I
guess the then 10+ days old (slightly) unmaintained kernel
4.9.24-hardened (and there won't be any updates, correct?), may have
contributed to my woes[2]:

# ls -ABRgo /usr/portage/sys-kernel/hardened-sources/
...
-rw-r--r-- 1  47449 2016-12-17 02:21 ChangeLog
...
-rw-r--r-- 1   1316 2017-04-22 18:18 hardened-sources-4.9.24.ebuild
...
#

And really since late in 2016 no more entries in the Changelog. Pls.
note that I'm only stating the facts, not complaining.

I really wish I learn myself and be able to contribute; acually I have
occasinally contributed, marginally, to the hardened project, with
testing.

> worth reading:
> 
> http://openwall.com/lists/kernel-hardening/2017/05/01/5
> 
> http://openwall.com/lists/kernel-hardening/2017/05/02/4

And these should not be missed:

It looks like there will be no more public versions of PaX and Grsec
http://openwall.com/lists/kernel-hardening/2017/05/04/20
( Shawn's collection of links there are an eye-opener, esp. this one
link which, to me, feels like sacrilege:
https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/39546.html
about Karen Sandler, the executive director of the Software Freedom
Conservancy, by sly means prevented to stand for LF board )

and:
< same subject >
http://openwall.com/lists/kernel-hardening/2017/05/02/14
( where find what "is... unappealing." )

> this means:
> 
> * KSPP means that keeping PaX for >4.9 will be difficult and painful,
> as I pointed out previously

> * NSA SELinux instead PAX MPROTECT?
I hope this is a joke. It looks like one, at first sight, but there are
half a dozen "NSA SELinux" instances to be found in the latest
hardened-sources.

# grep 'NSA SE' /usr/src/linux/security/selinux/Kconfig 
	bool "NSA SELinux Support"
	...
#
(where linux is a hardened-sources installation)

If hardened would be down to SELinux, I wouldn't be hardening any more.

> alternatives: RSBAC
> 
...

But I saw the other link that gives me some hope:

Unofficial forward ports of the last publicly available grsecurity patch
https://github.com/minipli/linux-unofficial_grsec/tree/linux-4.9.x-unofficial_grsec

which I cloned into my machine. (And I have just spent hours trying to
fix an ebuild in my custom overlay and install it in my machine, to no
avail so far, and I'm at the end of my forbearance... A little more below.)

And I wonder:

1) Are there any guides for non-programmers how to install the:

Merge tag 'v4.9.26' into linux-4.9.x-unofficial_grsec
https://github.com/minipli/linux-unofficial_grsec/commit/bb9fb983874810ca4167430508e06975af700824?diff=unified

UPDATE (at proofreading time: Matheus, thanks! You just PGP-signed the
new tag [3], reader, skip 16 lines )

2) How can I check the integrity? I can:

$ git tag --verify v4.9.26
object d071951e08ee23cd725c2336d7ab4582bb93b0af
type commit
tag v4.9.26
tagger Greg Kroah-Hartman <[email protected]> 1493825816 -0700
...
$

but I can not verify Mathias Krause's commit. Pls. minipli, can you
start PGP-signing... [cut more text, because you have :) ]

(Continue reading, isues left here, this is the "little more below"
I mentioned above.)

The README.md is plain readme from the kernel, no mention of grsec at
all...

Where do I get some tips how to install? I do have the git sources, they
verify fine... I will, hopefully, keep strong and keep trying, but I'm
not so very sure I am able to craft an ebuild that would work and that
would install with the local git linux-unofficial_grsec repo...

I suspect the [2] below was because my kernel wasn't updated... and I do
feel a little insecure at this time...

---
[1] but I can understand the issues the developers have. I have some
	understanding of programming, and the politics with and around FOSS
	is easy to understand, given time and info.

[2] Strange script planted with Bash
    https://www.croatiafidelis.hr/foss/cap/cap-170504-strange-bash/
	and:
	Inconsistent behavior in my Gentoo OS instance
	https://lists.gt.net/gentoo/user/325985#325985

[3] $ git tag --verify v4.9.26-unofficial_grsec
    object bb9fb983874810ca4167430508e06975af700824
    type commit
    tag v4.9.26-unofficial_grsec
    tagger Mathias Krause <minipli-gM/[email protected]> 1494181910 +0200
    
    This is the unofficial forward port of grsecurity-3.1-4.9.24-201704252333.patch to v4.9.26
    gpg: Signature made Sun 07 May 2017 20:32:02 CEST
    gpg:                using RSA key 7585399992435BA4
    gpg: Good signature from "Mathias Krause <minipli-gM/[email protected]>" [unknown]
    ...
    Primary key fingerprint: 7629 8B5B B60E DAD2 1B36  2E66 7585 3999 9243 5BA4

Regards!
-- 
Miroslav Rovis
Zagreb, Croatia
https://www.CroatiaFidelis.hr
signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, 833 B)