[CentOS] How to prevent root from managing/disabling SELinux

Tue Jan 27 01:40:24 UTC 2015
Stephen Harris <lists at spuddy.org>

On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 03:29:23PM -0500, Daniel J Walsh wrote:

> You could also set the secure_ booleans

Is this in addition to or instead of removing unconfined users?

>  getsebool -a | grep secure_*
> secure_mode --> off
> secure_mode_insmod --> off
> secure_mode_policyload --> off

Without removing unconfined users this definitely stops setenforce
working...  but root can still set the boolean off.

So playing around, just to see what destruction I can cause...

Window 1 had an unconfined user doing tail -f /var/log/messages
Window 2 had a guest_u user
Window 3 had a sysadm_u user, su'd to root

In window 3 I did 'semanage -d unconfined' and then 'semanage -d
unconfineduser'.
At that point that window threw up
  libsemanage.dbase_llist_query: could not query record value (No such file or directory).

and control-C, control-Z, control-\ all did nothing interesting.

Window 1 (unconfined) displayed tonnes of errors from messages, around
things like staff_u not being valid.  Then froze, then eventually ssh
session died; I'm guessing SELinux starting blocking the port.
  SELinux:  Context staff_u:unconfined_r:samba_unconfined_net_t:s0 became invalid (unmapped).
  SELinux:  Context unconfined_u:system_r:samba_unconfined_net_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 became invalid (unmapped).
  SELinux:  Context staff_u:system_r:samba_unconfined_net_t:s0 became invalid (unmapped).

The one session that stayed active was the guest_u one... but not a lot
I can do, there!

root login on the console failed:
  Unable to get valid context for root

  Cannot make/remove an entry for the specified session
  [342970.402198] audit: backlog limit exceeded
  [342970.402622] audit: backlog limit exceeded
  [342970.402983] audit: backlog limit exceeded

ssh as the sysadm_u user fails with context issues.

I can login with the sysadm_u user on the console, although this
user can't see his own home directory.

And that was able to su to root and re-enable the two modules :-)

-- 

rgds
Stephen