MAC(4)							   BSD Kernel Interfaces Manual 						    MAC(4)

NAME

     mac -- Mandatory Access Control

SYNOPSIS

     options MAC

DESCRIPTION

   Introduction
     The Mandatory Access Control, or MAC, framework allows administrators to finely control system security by providing for a loadable security
     policy architecture.  It is important to note that due to its nature, MAC security policies may only restrict access relative to one another
     and the base system policy; they cannot override traditional UNIX security provisions such as file permissions and superuser checks.

     Currently, the following MAC policy modules are shipped with FreeBSD:

     Name		    Description 		Labeling    Load time
     mac_biba(4)	    Biba integrity policy	yes	    boot only
     mac_bsdextended(4)     File system firewall	no	    any time
     mac_ifoff(4)	    Interface silencing 	no	    any time
     mac_lomac(4)	    Low-Watermark MAC policy	yes	    boot only
     mac_mls(4) 	    Confidentiality policy	yes	    boot only
     mac_none(4)	    Sample no-op policy 	no	    any time
     mac_partition(4)	    Process partition policy	yes	    any time
     mac_portacl(4)	    Port bind(2) access control no	    any time
     mac_seeotheruids(4)    See-other-UIDs policy	no	    any time
     mac_test(4)	    MAC testing policy		no	    any time

   MAC Labels
     Each system subject (processes, sockets, etc.) and each system object (file system objects, sockets, etc.) can carry with it a MAC label.
     MAC labels contain data in an arbitrary format taken into consideration in making access control decisions for a given operation.	Most MAC
     labels on system subjects and objects can be modified directly or indirectly by the system administrator.	The format for a given policy's
     label may vary depending on the type of object or subject being labeled.  More information on the format for MAC labels can be found in the
     maclabel(7) man page.

   MAC Support for UFS2 File Systems
     By default, file system enforcement of labeled MAC policies relies on a single file system label (see MAC Labels) in order to make access
     control decisions for all the files in a particular file system.  With some policies, this configuration may not allow administrators to take
     full advantage of features.  In order to enable support for labeling files on an individual basis for a particular file system, the
     ``multilabel'' flag must be enabled on the file system.  To set the ``multilabel'' flag, drop to single-user mode and unmount the file sys-
     tem, then execute the following command:

	   tunefs -l enable filesystem

     where filesystem is either the mount point (in fstab(5)) or the special file (in /dev) corresponding to the file system on which to enable
     multilabel support.

   Policy Enforcement
     Policy enforcement is divided into the following areas of the system:

     File System
     File system mounts, modifying directories, modifying files, etc.

     KLD
     Loading, unloading, and retrieving statistics on loaded kernel modules

     Network
     Network interfaces, bpf(4), packet delivery and transmission, interface configuration (ioctl(2), ifconfig(8))

     Pipes
     Creation of and operation on pipe(2) objects

     Processes
     Debugging (e.g. ktrace(2)), process visibility (ps(1)), process execution (execve(2)), signalling (kill(2))

     Sockets
     Creation of and operation on socket(2) objects

     System
     Kernel environment (kenv(1)), system accounting (acct(2)), reboot(2), settimeofday(2), swapon(2), sysctl(3), nfsd(8)-related operations

     VM
     mmap(2)-ed files

   Setting MAC Labels
     From the command line, each type of system object has its own means for setting and modifying its MAC policy label.

	   Subject/Object	    Utility
	   File system object	    setfmac(8), setfsmac(8)
	   Network interface	    ifconfig(8)
	   TTY (by login class)     login.conf(5)
	   User (by login class)    login.conf(5)

     Additionally, the su(1) and setpmac(8) utilities can be used to run a command with a different process label than the shell's current label.

   Programming With MAC
     MAC security enforcement itself is transparent to application programs, with the exception that some programs may need to be aware of addi-
     tional errno(2) returns from various system calls.

     The interface for retrieving, handling, and setting policy labels is documented in the mac(3) man page.

SEE ALSO

     mac(3), mac_biba(4), mac_bsdextended(4), mac_ifoff(4), mac_lomac(4), mac_mls(4), mac_none(4), mac_partition(4), mac_portacl(4),
     mac_seeotheruids(4), mac_test(4), login.conf(5), maclabel(7), getfmac(8), getpmac(8), setfmac(8), setpmac(8), mac(9)

     "Mandatory Access Control", The FreeBSD Handbook, http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mac.html.

HISTORY

     The mac implementation first appeared in FreeBSD 5.0 and was developed by the TrustedBSD Project.

AUTHORS

     This software was contributed to the FreeBSD Project by Network Associates Labs, the Security Research Division of Network Associates Inc.
     under DARPA/SPAWAR contract N66001-01-C-8035 (``CBOSS''), as part of the DARPA CHATS research program.

BUGS

     See mac(9) concerning appropriateness for production use.	The TrustedBSD MAC Framework is considered experimental in FreeBSD.

     While the MAC Framework design is intended to support the containment of the root user, not all attack channels are currently protected by
     entry point checks.  As such, MAC Framework policies should not be relied on, in isolation, to protect against a malicious privileged user.

BSD
								 October 30, 2007							       BSD