Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

Role-based access control (RBAC) is a method that allows and restricts access to subjects or users based on the role of the user. When reading, pay attention to the description of an RBAC system and be able to describe the system, as well as to name the user that only RBAC can restrict. How does this one restriction increase the difficulty for an attacker to compromise the system? What is the set of rules called that manages the RBAC system? Although you will not be asked to create an RBAC policy, read through the rest of the document and try to follow the examples of how an RBAC policy is coded on a system.

1. What Is an RBAC System?

A role-based access control (RBAC) system is an approach to restricting system access to authorized users. You need an RBAC system if you want to restrict access to files, capabilities, resources, or sockets to all users, including root. This is similar to a Mandatory Access Control (MAC) model. The other features of grsecurity are only effective at fending off attackers trying to gain root, so the RBAC system is used to fill in this gap. Least privilege can be granted to processes, which, in turn, forces attackers to reevaluate their methods of attack, since gaining access to the root account no longer means that they have full access to the system. Access can be explicitly granted to processes that need it, in such a way that root acts as any other user. Though grsecurity and its RBAC system are in no means perfect security, they greatly increase the difficulty of successfully compromising the system.

In grsecurity, the RBAC system is managed through a policy file which is essentially a system-wide set of rules. When the RBAC system is activated with gradm, the policy file is parsed and checked for security holes, such as granting the default role access to certain sensitive devices and files like the policy file itself. If a security hole is found, gradm will refuse to enable the RBAC system, and will give the user a list of things that need to be fixed. The policy file is protected when the RBAC system is active, and only the admin role may access it during that time. To make it easier to create a secure policy, gradm has the ability to learn how the system functions, and build a least-privilege policy based on the collected data (see Learning Mode).


Source: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Grsecurity/The_RBAC_System
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