aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstatshomepage
path: root/Documentation/netlabel/lsm_interface.rst
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorMauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab+samsung@kernel.org>2019-06-12 14:52:52 -0300
committerJonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>2019-06-14 14:23:30 -0600
commit593733ab80ac2c607acc1fc3fbaba5031d38253a (patch)
treed7cc25050c596e7843fc2ad013812aeebc35a793 /Documentation/netlabel/lsm_interface.rst
parentdocs: mic: convert docs to ReST and rename to *.rst (diff)
downloadwireguard-linux-593733ab80ac2c607acc1fc3fbaba5031d38253a.tar.xz
wireguard-linux-593733ab80ac2c607acc1fc3fbaba5031d38253a.zip
docs: netlabel: convert docs to ReST and rename to *.rst
Convert netlabel documentation to ReST. This was trivial: just add proper title markups. At its new index.rst, let's add a :orphan: while this is not linked to the main index.rst file, in order to avoid build warnings. Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab+samsung@kernel.org> Acked-by: Paul Moore <paul@paul-moore.com> Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/netlabel/lsm_interface.rst')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/netlabel/lsm_interface.rst53
1 files changed, 53 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/netlabel/lsm_interface.rst b/Documentation/netlabel/lsm_interface.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..026fc267f798
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/netlabel/lsm_interface.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+========================================
+NetLabel Linux Security Module Interface
+========================================
+
+Paul Moore, paul.moore@hp.com
+
+May 17, 2006
+
+Overview
+========
+
+NetLabel is a mechanism which can set and retrieve security attributes from
+network packets. It is intended to be used by LSM developers who want to make
+use of a common code base for several different packet labeling protocols.
+The NetLabel security module API is defined in 'include/net/netlabel.h' but a
+brief overview is given below.
+
+NetLabel Security Attributes
+============================
+
+Since NetLabel supports multiple different packet labeling protocols and LSMs
+it uses the concept of security attributes to refer to the packet's security
+labels. The NetLabel security attributes are defined by the
+'netlbl_lsm_secattr' structure in the NetLabel header file. Internally the
+NetLabel subsystem converts the security attributes to and from the correct
+low-level packet label depending on the NetLabel build time and run time
+configuration. It is up to the LSM developer to translate the NetLabel
+security attributes into whatever security identifiers are in use for their
+particular LSM.
+
+NetLabel LSM Protocol Operations
+================================
+
+These are the functions which allow the LSM developer to manipulate the labels
+on outgoing packets as well as read the labels on incoming packets. Functions
+exist to operate both on sockets as well as the sk_buffs directly. These high
+level functions are translated into low level protocol operations based on how
+the administrator has configured the NetLabel subsystem.
+
+NetLabel Label Mapping Cache Operations
+=======================================
+
+Depending on the exact configuration, translation between the network packet
+label and the internal LSM security identifier can be time consuming. The
+NetLabel label mapping cache is a caching mechanism which can be used to
+sidestep much of this overhead once a mapping has been established. Once the
+LSM has received a packet, used NetLabel to decode its security attributes,
+and translated the security attributes into a LSM internal identifier the LSM
+can use the NetLabel caching functions to associate the LSM internal
+identifier with the network packet's label. This means that in the future
+when a incoming packet matches a cached value not only are the internal
+NetLabel translation mechanisms bypassed but the LSM translation mechanisms are
+bypassed as well which should result in a significant reduction in overhead.