move bind-dirs to its own systemd unit file

[adrelanos]

• https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-core-agent-linux/blob/master/vm-systemd/qubes-mount-dirs.service

After=qubes-sysinit.service dev-xvdb.device
DefaultDependencies=no
Before=local-fs.target rw.mount home.mount qubes-gui-agent.service

• https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-core-agent-linux/blob/master/vm-systemd/mount-dirs.sh

The issue with mount-dirs.sh is that it calls /usr/lib/qubes/init/bind-dirs.sh which could execute malicious code through /rw/config/qubes-bind-dirs.d which during a previous boot could have used to place a malicious malware hook. That can be fixed by moving bind-dirs into its own systemd unit file.

Reason: That would help to allow adding a systemd unit into the middle such as https://github.com/tasket/Qubes-VM-hardening or similar.

Related: https://github.com/tasket/Qubes-VM-hardening/issues/34

[DemiMarie]

I wonder if it would be best to put at least some of this into the initramfs. That would avoid some potentially nasty race conditions.

[marmarek]

I wonder if it would be best to put at least some of this into the initramfs. That would avoid some potentially nasty race conditions.

I don't think it's a good idea. In initramfs you don't have access to a some of the config files, root fs may be mounted still read only and most importantly, /rw isn't mounted yet, so you don't have what to bind mount. And no, moving /rw mount to initramfs is a bad idea (at the very least, would make the issue in this very ticket even harder to solve).

[DemiMarie]

And no, moving /rw mount to initramfs is a bad idea (at the very least, would make the issue in this very ticket even harder to solve).

Good catch!

[adrelanos]

I wonder if it would be best to put at least some of this into the initramfs. That would avoid some potentially nasty race conditions.

I like the idea.

Disadvantage: Getting initramfs-generator specific.

• initramfs-tools (Debian default)
• dracut (Fedora default, Kicksecure default)
  • https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/8649
• systemd mkosi maybe some day in the future (video)

In practice, it would probably need to be implemented for both, initramfs-tools and dracut.

In initramfs you don't have access to a some of the config files

This shouldn't be an issue. All initramfs-generators support configuration files available from the root disk. This wasn't even hard to implement. For example, we implemented something remotely similar (configuration files on the root disk, but needed at initramfs time) in security-misc:

An initramfs hook sets the sysctl values in /etc/sysctl.conf and /etc/sysctl.d before init is executed so sysctl hardening is enabled as early as possible.

Implementation can be seen here: https://github.com/Kicksecure/security-misc/tree/master/etc/initramfs-tools

Reasonable implementation effort and always has been stable.

[marmarek]

This shouldn't be an issue. All initramfs-generators support configuration files available from the root disk.

That doesn't work for dom0-provided kernel+initramfs.

[adrelanos]

Indeed. So getting,

• https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/5212

done would be a prerequisite. Then this should be doable.

[marmarek]

Still, I think think moving bind-dirs (and by extension, the whole /rw setup, including mkfs/fsck etc) to initramfs is a very bad idea. Initramfs should do the bare minimum necessary to start init from the root filesystem and then switch to the normal init. Doing too much in initramfs is asking for troubles. Just a couple of them:

• having some outdated files / missing configs due to not regenerated initramfs
• or actually needing (slow) initramfs regeneration after changing many setting
• very limited set of services/tools to use (for example you can't do things based on qubesdb entries at that point yet)
• using too much ram (as the name says, initramfs has all its files/data in RAM) and so breaking booting (or requiring raising memory requirements for every VM)

There are likely more.