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Chapter 13. Blocking and allowing applications using fapolicyd

Setting and enforcing a policy that either allows or denies application execution based on a rule set efficiently prevents the execution of unknown and potentially malicious software.

13.1. Introduction to fapolicyd

The fapolicyd software framework controls the execution of applications based on a user-defined policy. This is one of the most efficient ways to prevent running untrusted and possibly malicious applications on the system.

The fapolicyd framework provides the following components:

  • fapolicyd service
  • fapolicyd command-line utilities
  • fapolicyd RPM plugin
  • fapolicyd rule language
  • fagenrules script

The administrator can define the allow and deny execution rules for any application with the possibility of auditing based on a path, hash, MIME type, or trust.

The fapolicyd framework introduces the concept of trust. An application is trusted when it is properly installed by the system package manager, and therefore it is registered in the system RPM database. The fapolicyd daemon uses the RPM database as a list of trusted binaries and scripts. The fapolicyd RPM plugin registers any system update that is handled by either the YUM package manager or the RPM Package Manager. The plugin notifies the fapolicyd daemon about changes in this database. Other ways of adding applications require the creation of custom rules and restarting the fapolicyd service.

The fapolicyd service configuration is located in the /etc/fapolicyd/ directory with the following structure:

  • The /etc/fapolicyd/fapolicyd.trust file contains a list of trusted files. You can also use multiple trust files in the /etc/fapolicyd/trust.d/ directory.
  • The /etc/fapolicyd/rules.d/ directory for files containing allow and deny execution rules. The fagenrules script merges these component rules files to the /etc/fapolicyd/compiled.rules file.
  • The fapolicyd.conf file contains the daemon’s configuration options. This file is useful primarily for performance-tuning purposes.

Rules in /etc/fapolicyd/rules.d/ are organized in several files, each representing a different policy goal. The numbers at the beginning of the corresponding file names determine the order in /etc/fapolicyd/compiled.rules:

10
Language rules.
20
Dracut-related Rules.
21
rules for updaters.
30
Patterns.
40
ELF rules.
41
Shared objects rules.
42
Trusted ELF rules.
70
Trusted language rules.
72
Shell rules.
90
Deny execute rules.
95
Allow open rules.

You can use one of the following ways for fapolicyd integrity checking:

  • File-size checking
  • Comparing SHA-256 hashes
  • Integrity Measurement Architecture (IMA) subsystem

By default, fapolicyd does no integrity checking. Integrity checking based on the file size is fast, but an attacker can replace the content of the file and preserve its byte size. Computing and checking SHA-256 checksums is more secure, but it affects the performance of the system. The integrity = ima option in fapolicyd.conf requires support for files extended attributes (also known as xattr) on all file systems containing executable files.

Additional resources

13.2. Deploying fapolicyd

To deploy the fapolicyd framework in RHEL:

Procedure

  1. Install the fapolicyd package:

    # yum install fapolicyd
  2. Enable and start the fapolicyd service:

    # systemctl enable --now fapolicyd

Verification

  1. Verify that the fapolicyd service is running correctly:

    # systemctl status fapolicyd
    ● fapolicyd.service - File Access Policy Daemon
       Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/fapolicyd.service; enabled; vendor p>
       Active: active (running) since Tue 2019-10-15 18:02:35 CEST; 55s ago
      Process: 8818 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/fapolicyd (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
     Main PID: 8819 (fapolicyd)
        Tasks: 4 (limit: 11500)
       Memory: 78.2M
       CGroup: /system.slice/fapolicyd.service
               └─8819 /usr/sbin/fapolicyd
    
    Oct 15 18:02:35 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: Starting File Access Policy D>
    Oct 15 18:02:35 localhost.localdomain fapolicyd[8819]: Initialization of the da>
    Oct 15 18:02:35 localhost.localdomain fapolicyd[8819]: Reading RPMDB into memory
    Oct 15 18:02:35 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: Started File Access Policy Da>
    Oct 15 18:02:36 localhost.localdomain fapolicyd[8819]: Creating database
  2. Log in as a user without root privileges, and check that fapolicyd is working, for example:

    $ cp /bin/ls /tmp
    $ /tmp/ls
    bash: /tmp/ls: Operation not permitted

13.3. Marking files as trusted using an additional source of trust

The fapolicyd framework trusts files contained in the RPM database. You can mark additional files as trusted by adding the corresponding entries to the /etc/fapolicyd/fapolicyd.trust plain-text file or the /etc/fapolicyd/trust.d/ directory, which supports separating a list of trusted files into more files. You can modify fapolicyd.trust or the files in /etc/fapolicyd/trust.d either directly using a text editor or through fapolicyd-cli commands.

Note

Marking files as trusted using fapolicyd.trust or trust.d/ is better than writing custom fapolicyd rules due to performance reasons.

Prerequisites

  • The fapolicyd framework is deployed on your system.

Procedure

  1. Copy your custom binary to the required directory, for example:

    $ cp /bin/ls /tmp
    $ /tmp/ls
    bash: /tmp/ls: Operation not permitted
  2. Mark your custom binary as trusted, and store the corresponding entry to the myapp file in /etc/fapolicyd/trust.d/:

    # fapolicyd-cli --file add /tmp/ls --trust-file myapp
    • If you skip the --trust-file option, then the previous command adds the corresponding line to /etc/fapolicyd/fapolicyd.trust.
    • To mark all existing files in a directory as trusted, provide the directory path as an argument of the --file option, for example: fapolicyd-cli --file add /tmp/my_bin_dir/ --trust-file myapp.
  3. Update the fapolicyd database:

    # fapolicyd-cli --update
Note

Changing the content of a trusted file or directory changes their checksum, and therefore fapolicyd no longer considers them trusted.

To make the new content trusted again, refresh the file trust database by using the fapolicyd-cli --file update command. If you do not provide any argument, the entire database refreshes. Alternatively, you can specify a path to a specific file or directory. Then, update the database by using fapolicyd-cli --update.

Verification

  1. Check that your custom binary can be now executed, for example:

    $ /tmp/ls
    ls

Additional resources

  • fapolicyd.trust(13) man page.

13.4. Adding custom allow and deny rules for fapolicyd

The default set of rules in the fapolicyd package does not affect system functions. For custom scenarios, such as storing binaries and scripts in a non-standard directory or adding applications without the yum or rpm installers, you must either mark additional files as trusted or add new custom rules.

For basic scenarios, prefer Marking files as trusted using an additional source of trust. In more advanced scenarios such as allowing to execute a custom binary only for specific user and group identifiers, add new custom rules to the /etc/fapolicyd/rules.d/ directory.

The following steps demonstrate adding a new rule to allow a custom binary.

Prerequisites

  • The fapolicyd framework is deployed on your system.

Procedure

  1. Copy your custom binary to the required directory, for example:

    $ cp /bin/ls /tmp
    $ /tmp/ls
    bash: /tmp/ls: Operation not permitted
  2. Stop the fapolicyd service:

    # systemctl stop fapolicyd
  3. Use debug mode to identify a corresponding rule. Because the output of the fapolicyd --debug command is verbose and you can stop it only by pressing Ctrl+C or killing the corresponding process, redirect the error output to a file. In this case, you can limit the output only to access denials by using the --debug-deny option instead of --debug:

    # fapolicyd --debug-deny 2> fapolicy.output &
    [1] 51341

    Alternatively, you can run fapolicyd debug mode in another terminal.

  4. Repeat the command that fapolicyd denied:

    $ /tmp/ls
    bash: /tmp/ls: Operation not permitted
  5. Stop debug mode by resuming it in the foreground and pressing Ctrl+C:

    # fg
    fapolicyd --debug 2> fapolicy.output
    ^C
    ...

    Alternatively, kill the process of fapolicyd debug mode:

    # kill 51341
  6. Find a rule that denies the execution of your application:

    # cat fapolicy.output | grep 'deny_audit'
    ...
    rule=13 dec=deny_audit perm=execute auid=0 pid=6855 exe=/usr/bin/bash : path=/tmp/ls ftype=application/x-executable trust=0
  7. Locate the file that contains a rule that prevented the execution of your custom binary. In this case, the deny_audit perm=execute rule belongs to the 90-deny-execute.rules file:

    # ls /etc/fapolicyd/rules.d/
    10-languages.rules  40-bad-elf.rules	   72-shell.rules
    20-dracut.rules     41-shared-obj.rules    90-deny-execute.rules
    21-updaters.rules   42-trusted-elf.rules   95-allow-open.rules
    30-patterns.rules   70-trusted-lang.rules
    
    
    # cat /etc/fapolicyd/rules.d/90-deny-execute.rules
    # Deny execution for anything untrusted
    
    deny_audit perm=execute all : all
  8. Add a new allow rule to the file that lexically precedes the rule file that contains the rule that denied the execution of your custom binary in the /etc/fapolicyd/rules.d/ directory:

    # touch /etc/fapolicyd/rules.d/80-myapps.rules
    # vi /etc/fapolicyd/rules.d/80-myapps.rules

    Insert the following rule to the 80-myapps.rules file:

    allow perm=execute exe=/usr/bin/bash trust=1 : path=/tmp/ls ftype=application/x-executable trust=0

    Alternatively, you can allow executions of all binaries in the /tmp directory by adding the following rule to the rule file in /etc/fapolicyd/rules.d/:

    allow perm=execute exe=/usr/bin/bash trust=1 : dir=/tmp/ trust=0
  9. To prevent changes in the content of your custom binary, define the required rule using an SHA-256 checksum:

    $ sha256sum /tmp/ls
    780b75c90b2d41ea41679fcb358c892b1251b68d1927c80fbc0d9d148b25e836  ls

    Change the rule to the following definition:

    allow perm=execute exe=/usr/bin/bash trust=1 : sha256hash=780b75c90b2d41ea41679fcb358c892b1251b68d1927c80fbc0d9d148b25e836
  10. Check that the list of compiled differs from the rule set in /etc/fapolicyd/rules.d/, and update the list, which is stored in the /etc/fapolicyd/compiled.rules file:

    # fagenrules --check
    /usr/sbin/fagenrules: Rules have changed and should be updated
    # fagenrules --load
  11. Check that your custom rule is in the list of fapolicyd rules before the rule that prevented the execution:

    # fapolicyd-cli --list
    ...
    13. allow perm=execute exe=/usr/bin/bash trust=1 : path=/tmp/ls ftype=application/x-executable trust=0
    14. deny_audit perm=execute all : all
    ...
  12. Start the fapolicyd service:

    # systemctl start fapolicyd

Verification

  1. Check that your custom binary can be now executed, for example:

    $ /tmp/ls
    ls

Additional resources

  • fapolicyd.rules(5) and fapolicyd-cli(1) man pages.
  • The documentation installed with the fapolicyd package in the /usr/share/fapolicyd/sample-rules/README-rules file.

13.5. Enabling fapolicyd integrity checks

By default, fapolicyd does not perform integrity checking. You can configure fapolicyd to perform integrity checks by comparing either file sizes or SHA-256 hashes. You can also set integrity checks by using the Integrity Measurement Architecture (IMA) subsystem.

Prerequisites

  • The fapolicyd framework is deployed on your system.

Procedure

  1. Open the /etc/fapolicyd/fapolicyd.conf file in a text editor of your choice, for example:

    # vi /etc/fapolicyd/fapolicyd.conf
  2. Change the value of the integrity option from none to sha256, save the file, and exit the editor:

    integrity = sha256
  3. Restart the fapolicyd service:

    # systemctl restart fapolicyd

Verification

  1. Back up the file used for the verification:

    # cp /bin/more /bin/more.bak
  2. Change the content of the /bin/more binary:

    # cat /bin/less > /bin/more
  3. Use the changed binary as a regular user:

    # su example.user
    $ /bin/more /etc/redhat-release
    bash: /bin/more: Operation not permitted
  4. Revert the changes:

    # mv -f /bin/more.bak /bin/more

13.7. Additional resources

  • fapolicyd-related man pages listed by using the man -k fapolicyd command.
  • The FOSDEM 2020 fapolicyd presentation.