1 BSD Secure Levels Linux Security Module
2 Michael A. Halcrow <mike@halcrow.us>
7 Under the BSD Secure Levels security model, sets of policies are
8 associated with levels. Levels range from -1 to 2, with -1 being the
9 weakest and 2 being the strongest. These security policies are
10 enforced at the kernel level, so not even the superuser is able to
11 disable or circumvent them. This hardens the machine against attackers
12 who gain root access to the system.
17 Level -1 (Permanently Insecure):
18 - Cannot increase the secure level
21 - Cannot ptrace the init process
24 - /dev/mem and /dev/kmem are read-only
25 - IMMUTABLE and APPEND extended attributes, if set, may not be unset
26 - Cannot load or unload kernel modules
27 - Cannot write directly to a mounted block device
28 - Cannot perform raw I/O operations
29 - Cannot perform network administrative tasks
30 - Cannot setuid any file
33 - Cannot decrement the system time
34 - Cannot write to any block device, whether mounted or not
35 - Cannot unmount any mounted filesystems
40 To compile the BSD Secure Levels LSM, seclvl.ko, enable the
41 SECURITY_SECLVL configuration option. This is found under Security
42 options -> BSD Secure Levels in the kernel configuration menu.
47 Once the machine is in a running state, with all the necessary modules
48 loaded and all the filesystems mounted, you can load the seclvl.ko
53 The module defaults to secure level 1, except when compiled directly
54 into the kernel, in which case it defaults to secure level 0. To raise
55 the secure level to 2, the administrator writes ``2'' to the
56 seclvl/seclvl file under the sysfs mount point (assumed to be /sys in
59 # echo -n "2" > /sys/seclvl/seclvl
61 Alternatively, you can initialize the module at secure level 2 with
62 the initlvl module parameter:
64 # insmod seclvl.ko initlvl=2
66 At this point, it is impossible to remove the module or reduce the
67 secure level. If the administrator wishes to have the option of doing
68 so, he must provide a module parameter, sha1_passwd, that specifies
69 the SHA1 hash of the password that can be used to reduce the secure
72 To generate this SHA1 hash, the administrator can use OpenSSL:
74 # echo -n "boogabooga" | openssl sha1
75 abeda4e0f33defa51741217592bf595efb8d289c
77 In order to use password-instigated secure level reduction, the SHA1
78 crypto module must be loaded or compiled into the kernel:
82 The administrator can then insmod the seclvl module, including the
83 SHA1 hash of the password:
86 sha1_passwd=abeda4e0f33defa51741217592bf595efb8d289c
88 To reduce the secure level, write the password to seclvl/passwd under
89 your sysfs mount point:
91 # echo -n "boogabooga" > /sys/seclvl/passwd
93 The September 2004 edition of Sys Admin Magazine has an article about
94 the BSD Secure Levels LSM. I encourage you to refer to that article
95 for a more in-depth treatment of this security module:
97 http://www.samag.com/documents/s=9304/sam0409a/0409a.htm