Switch to GSSAPI (kerberos) instead of the insecure DIGEST-MD5

RFC 6331 documents a number of serious security weaknesses in
the SASL DIGEST-MD5 mechanism. As such, libvirtd should not
by using it as a default mechanism. GSSAPI is the only other
viable SASL mechanism that can provide secure session encryption
so enable that by defalt as the replacement.

Signed-off-by: Daniel P. Berrange <berrange@redhat.com>
This commit is contained in:
Daniel P. Berrange
2017-03-15 18:14:51 +00:00
parent 7b89f857d9
commit 3c647ee4bb
3 changed files with 103 additions and 37 deletions
+71 -19
View File
@@ -204,16 +204,72 @@ ResultActive=yes</pre>
Further examples of PolicyKit setup can be found on the
<a href="http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/SSHPolicyKitSetup">wiki page</a>.
</p>
<h2><a name="ACL_server_username">Username/password auth</a></h2>
<h2><a name="ACL_server_sasl">SASL pluggable authentication</a></h2>
<p>
The plain TCP socket of the libvirt daemon defaults to using SASL for authentication.
The SASL mechanism configured by default is DIGEST-MD5, which provides a basic
username+password style authentication. It also provides for encryption of the data
stream, so the security of the plain TCP socket is on a par with that of the TLS
socket. If desired the UNIX socket and TLS socket can also have SASL enabled by
setting the <code>auth_unix_ro</code>, <code>auth_unix_rw</code>, <code>auth_tls</code>
config params in <code>libvirt.conf</code>.
</p>
Libvirt integrates with the cyrus-sasl library to provide a pluggable authentication
system using the SASL protocol. SASL can be used in combination with libvirtd's TLS
or TCP socket listeners. When used with the TCP listener, the SASL mechanism is
rqeuired to provide session encryption in addition to authentication. Only a very
few SASL mechanisms are able to do this, and of those that can do it, only the
GSSAPI plugin is considered acceptably secure by modern standards:
</p>
<dl>
<dt>GSSAPI</dt>
<dd><strong>This is the current default mechanism to use with libvirtd</strong>.
It uses the Kerberos v5 authentication protocol underneath, and assuming
the Kerberos client/server are configured with modern ciphers (AES),
it provides strong session encryption capabilities.</dd>
<dt>DIGEST-MD5</dt>
<dd>This was previously set as the default mechanism to use with libvirtd.
It provides a simple username/password based authentication mechanism
that includes session encryption.
<a href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6331">RFC 6331</a>, however,
documents a number of serious security flaws with DIGEST-MD5 and as a
result marks it as <code>OBSOLETE</code>. Specific concerns are that
it is vulnerable to MITM attacks and the MD5 hash can be brute-forced
to reveal the password. A replacement is provided via the SCRAM mechanism,
however, note that this does not provide encryption, so the SCRAM
mechanism can only be used on the libvirtd TLS listener.
</dd>
<dt>PASSDSS-3DES-1</dt>
<dd>This provides a simple username/password based authentication
mechanism that includes session encryption. The current cyrus-sasl
implementation does not provide a way to validate the server's
public key identity, thus it is susceptible to a MITM attacker
impersonating the server. It is also not enabled in many OS
distros when building SASL libraries.</dd>
<dt>KERBEROS_V4</dt>
<dd>This uses the obsolete Kerberos v4 protocol to provide both authentication
and session encryption. Kerberos v4 protocol has been obsolete since the
early 1990's and has known security vulnerabilities so this will never be
used in practice.</dd>
</dl>
<p>
Other SASL mechanisms, not listed above, can only be used when the libvirtd
TLS or UNIX socket listeners.
</p>
<h3><a name="ACL_server_username">Username/password auth</a></h3>
<p>
As noted above, the DIGEST-MD5 mechanism is considered obsolete and should
not be used anymore. To provide a simple username/password auth scheme on
the libvirt UNIX socket or TLS listeners, however, it is possible to use
the SCRAM mechanism. The <code>auth_unix_ro</code>, <code>auth_unix_rw</code>,
<code>auth_tls</code> config params in <code>libvirt.conf</code> can be used
to turn on SASL auth in these listeners.
</p>
<p>
Since the libvirt SASL config file defaults to using GSSAPI (Kerberos), a
config change is rquired to enable plain password auth. This is done by
editting <code>/etc/sasl2/libvirt.conf</code> to set the <code>mech_list</code>
parameter to <code>scram-sha-1</code>.
</p>
<p>
Out of the box, no user accounts are defined, so no clients will be able to authenticate
on the TCP socket. Adding users and setting their passwords is done with the <code>saslpasswd2</code>
@@ -241,17 +297,13 @@ again:
<pre>
# saslpasswd2 -a libvirt -d fred
</pre>
<h2><a name="ACL_server_kerberos">Kerberos auth</a></h2>
<h3><a name="ACL_server_kerberos">GSSAPI/Kerberos auth</a></h3>
<p>
The plain TCP socket of the libvirt daemon defaults to using SASL for authentication.
The SASL mechanism configured by default is DIGEST-MD5, which provides a basic
username+password style authentication. To enable Kerberos single-sign-on instead,
the libvirt SASL configuration file must be changed. This is <code>/etc/sasl2/libvirt.conf</code>.
The <code>mech_list</code> parameter must first be changed to <code>gssapi</code>
instead of the default <code>digest-md5</code>, and keytab should be set to
<code>/etc/libvirt/krb5.tab</code> . If SASL is enabled on the UNIX
and/or TLS sockets, Kerberos will also be used for them. Like DIGEST-MD5, the Kerberos
mechanism provides data encryption of the session.
The plain TCP listener of the libvirt daemon defaults to using SASL for authentication.
The libvirt SASL config also defaults to GSSAPI, so there is no need to edit the
SASL config when using GSSAPI. If the libvirtd TLS or UNIX listeners are used,
then the Kerberos session encryption will be disabled since it is not required
in these scenarios - only the plain TCP listener needs encryption
</p>
<p>
Some operating systems do not install the SASL kerberos plugin by default. It