Re: [PATCH v2 0/3] initramfs: add support for xattrs in the initial ram disk

Mimi Zohar <[email protected]> Sun, 12 May 2019 08:52:47 -0400

Newsgroups	org.kernel.vger.initramfs,org.kernel.vger.linux-api,org.kernel.vger.linux-fsdevel,org.kernel.vger.linux-integrity,org.kernel.vger.linux-kernel,org.kernel.vger.linux-security-module
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

On Sun, 2019-05-12 at 11:17 +0200, Dominik Brodowski wrote:
> On Thu, May 09, 2019 at 01:24:17PM +0200, Roberto Sassu wrote:
> > This proposal consists in marshaling pathnames and xattrs in a file called
> > .xattr-list. They are unmarshaled by the CPIO parser after all files have
> > been extracted.
> 
> Couldn't this parsing of the .xattr-list file and the setting of the xattrs
> be done equivalently by the initramfs' /init? Why is kernel involvement
> actually required here?

It's too late.  The /init itself should be signed and verified.

Mimi