LIO.TCB

This module implements the core of the Labeled IO library for information flow control in Haskell. It provides a monad, LIO, that is intended to be used as a replacement for the IO monad in untrusted code. The idea is for untrusted code to provide a computation in the LIO monad, which trusted code can then safely execute through the evalLIO function. (Though usually a wrapper function is employed depending on the type of labels used by an application. For example, with LIO.DCLabel, you would use evalDC to execute an untrusted computation, and with LIO.HiStar labels, the function is evalHS. There are also abbreviations for the LIO monad type of a particular label--for instance DC or HS.)

A data structure Labeled (labeled value) protects access to pure values. Without the appropriate privileges, one cannot produce a pure value that depends on a secret Labeled, or conversely produce a high-integrity Labeled based on pure data. The function toLabeled allows one to seal off the results of an LIO computation inside an Labeled without tainting the current flow of execution. unlabel conversely allows one to use the value stored within a Labeled.

Any code that imports this module is part of the Trusted Computing Base (TCB) of the system. Hence, untrusted code must be prevented from importing this module. The exported symbols ending ...TCB can be used to violate label protections even from within pure code or the LIO Monad. A safe subset of these symbols is exported by the LIO.Base module, which is how untrusted code should access the core label functionality. (LIO.Base is also re-exported by LIO.LIO, the main gateway to this library.)

Basic label functions

Labels are a way of describing who can observe and modify data. There is a partial order, generally pronounced "can flow to" on labels. In Haskell we write this partial order `leq` (in the literature it is usually written as a square less than or equal sign--\sqsubseteq in TeX).

The idea is that data labeled l1 should affect data labeled l2 only if l1 `leq` l2, (i.e., l1 can flow to l2). The LIO monad keeps track of the current label of the executing code (accessible via the getLabel function). Code may attempt to perform various IO or memory operations on labeled data. Touching data may change the current label or throw an exception if an operation would violate can-flow-to restrictions.

If the current label is lcurrent, then it is only permissible to read data labeled lr if lr `leq` lcurrent. This is sometimes termed "no read up" in the literature; however, because the partial order allows for incomparable labels (i.e., two labels l1 and l2 such that not (l1 `leq` l2) && not (l2 `leq` l1)), a more appropriate phrasing would be "read only what can flow to your label". Note that, rather than throw an exception, reading data will often just increase the current label to ensure that lr `leq` lcurrent. The LIO monad keeps a second label, called the clearance (see getClearance), that represents the highest value the current thread can raise its label to.

Conversely, it is only permissible to modify data labeled lw when lcurrent `leq` lw, a property often cited as "no write down", but more accurately characterized as "write only what you can flow to". In practice, there are very few IO abstractions in which it is possible to do a pure write that doesn't also involve observing some state. For instance, writing to a file handle and not getting an exception tells you that the handle is not closed. Thus, in practice, the requirement for modifying data labeled lw is almost always that lcurrent == lw.

Note that higher labels are neither more nor less privileged than lower ones. Simply, the higher one's label is, the more things one can read. Conversely, the lower one's label, the more things one can write. But, because labels are a partial and not a total order, some data may be completely inaccessible to a particular omputatoin; for instance, if the current label is lcurrent, the current clearance is ccurrent, and some data is labeled ld, such that not (lcurrent `leq` ld || ld `leq` ccurrent), then the current thread can neither read nor write the data, at least without invoking some privilege.

Privilege comes from a separate class called Priv, representing the ability to bypass the protection of certain labels. Essentially, privilege allows you to behave as if l1 `leq` l2 even when that is not the case. The process of making data labeled l1 affect data labeled l2 when not (l1 `leq` l2) is called downgrading.

The basic method of the Priv object is leqp, which performs the more permissive can-flow-to check in the presence of particular privileges. Many LIO operations have variants ending ...P that take a privilege argument to act in a more permissive way. All Priv types are monoids, and so can be combined with mappend.

How to create Priv objects is specific to the particular label type in use. The method used is mintTCB, but the arguments depend on the particular label type. (Obviously, the symbol mintTCB must not be available to untrusted code.)

data POrdering

Constructors

PEQ

Equal

PLT

Less than

PGT

Greater than

PNE

Incomparable (neither less than nor greater than)

Instances

Eq POrdering

Ord POrdering

Show POrdering

Monoid POrdering

class Eq a => POrd a where

Methods

pcompare :: a -> a -> POrdering

leq :: a -> a -> Bool

Instances

POrd DCLabel

POrd HSLabel

POrd HSLevel

o2po :: Ordering -> POrdering

class (POrd a, Show a, Read a, Typeable a) => Label a where

Methods

lbot :: a

bottom

ltop :: a

top

lub :: a -> a -> a

least upper bound (join) of two labels

glb :: a -> a -> a

greatest lower bound (meet) of two labels

Instances

Label DCLabel

Label HSLabel

class (Label l, Monoid p, PrivTCB p) => Priv l p where

Methods

leqp :: p -> l -> l -> Bool

leqp p l1 l2 means that privileges p are sufficient to downgrade data from l1 to l2. Note that leq l1 l2 implies leq p l1 l2 for all p, but for some labels and privileges, leqp will hold even where leq does not.

lostar

Arguments

:: p

Privileges

-> l

Label from which data must flow

-> l

Goal label

-> l

Result

Roughly speaking, the function

 result = lostar p label goal

computes how close one can come to downgrading data labeled label to goal given privileges p. When p == NoPrivs, result == lub label goal. If p contains all possible privileges, then result == goal.

More specifically, result is the greatest lower bound of the set of all labels r satisfying:

1. leq goal r, and

2. leqp p label r

Operationally, lostar captures the minimum change required to the current label when viewing data labeled label. A common pattern is to use the result of getLabel as goal (i.e., the goal is to use privileges p to avoid changing the label at all), and then compute result based on the label of data the code is about to observe. For example, taintP could be implemented as:

    taintP p l = do lcurrent <- getLabel
                    taint (lostar p l lcurrent)

Instances

Label l => Priv l NoPrivs

Priv DCLabel TCBPriv

Priv HSLabel HSPrivs

data NoPrivs

A generic Priv instance that works for all Labels and confers no downgrading privileges.

Constructors

NoPrivs

Instances

Monoid NoPrivs

PrivTCB NoPrivs

Label l => Priv l NoPrivs

Labeled IO Monad (LIO)

The LIO monad is a wrapper around IO that keeps track of the current label and clearance. It is possible to raise one's label or lower one's clearance without privilege, but moving in the other direction requires appropriate privilege.

LIO is parameterized by two types. The first is the particular label type. The second type is state specific to the label type. Trusted label implementation code can use getTCB and putTCB to get and set the label state.

data Label l => LIO l s a

Instances

Label l => MonadError IOException (LIO l s)

Monad (LIO l s)

Functor (LIO l s)

MonadFix (LIO l s)

Label l => MonadCatch (LIO l s)

Label l => OnExceptionTCB (LIO l s)

Label l => MonadLIO (LIO l s) l s

(Label l, CloseOps (LHandle l h) (LIO l s), HandleOps h b IO) => HandleOps (LHandle l h) b (LIO l s)

Label l => CloseOps (LHandle l Handle) (LIO l s)

Label l => DirectoryOps (LHandle l Handle) (LIO l s)

getLabel :: Label l => LIO l s l

Returns the current value of the thread's label.

setLabelP :: Priv l p => p -> l -> LIO l s ()

If the current label is oldLabel and the current clearance is clearance, this function allows code to raise the label to any value newLabel such that oldLabel `leq` newLabel && newLabel `leq` clearance. Note that there is no setLabel variant without the ...P because the taint function provides essentially the same functionality that setLabel would.

getClearance :: Label l => LIO l s l

Returns the current value of the thread's clearance.

lowerClr :: Label l => l -> LIO l s ()

Reduce the current clearance. One cannot raise the current label or create object with labels higher than the current clearance.

lowerClrP :: Priv l p => p -> l -> LIO l s ()

Raise the current clearance (undoing the effects of lowerClr). This requires privileges.

withClearance :: Label l => l -> LIO l s a -> LIO l s a

Lowers the clearance of a computation, then restores the clearance to its previous value. Useful to wrap around a computation if you want to be sure you can catch exceptions thrown by it. Also useful to wrap around toLabeled to ensure that the computation does not access data exceeding a particular label. If withClearance is given a label that can't flow to the current clearance, then the clearance is lowered to the greatest lower bound of the label supplied and the current clearance.

Note that if the computation inside withClearance acquires any Privs, it may still be able to raise its clearance above the supplied argument using lowerClrP.

LIO guards

Guards are used by privileged code to check that the invoking, unprivileged code has access to particular data. If the current label is lcurrent and the current clearance is ccurrent, then the following checks should be performed when accessing data labeled ldata:

• When reading an object labeled ldata, it must be the case that ldata `leq` lcurrent. This check is performed by the taint function, so named becuase it "taints" the current LIO context by raising lcurrent until ldata `leq` lcurrent. (Specifically, it does this by computing the least upper bound of the two labels with the lub method of the Label class.) However, if after doing this it would be the case that not (lcurrent `leq` ccurrent), then taint throws exception LerrClearance rather than raising the current label.
• When writing an object, it should be the case that ldata `leq` lcurrent && lcurrent `leq` ldata. (As stated, this is the same as saying ldata == lcurrent, but the two are different when using leqp instead of leq.) This is ensured by the wguard (write guard) function, which does the equivalent of taint to ensure the target label ldata can flow to the current label, then throws an exception if lcurrent cannot flow back to the target label.
• When creating or allocating objects, it is permissible for them to be higher than the current label, so long as they are bellow the current clearance. In other words, it must be the case that lcurrent `leq` ldata && ldata `leq` ccurrent. This is ensured by the aguard (allocation guard) function.

The taintP, wguardP, and aguardP functions are variants of the above that take privilege to be more permissive and raise the current label less.

taint :: Label l => l -> LIO l s ()

Use taint l in trusted code before observing an object labeled l. This will raise the current label to a value l' such that l `leq` l', or throw LerrClearance if l' would have to be higher than the current clearance.

taintP

Arguments

:: Priv l p

=> p

Privileges to invoke

-> l

Label to taint to if no privileges

-> LIO l s ()

Like taint, but use privileges to reduce the amount of taint required. Note that unlike setLabelP, taintP will never lower the current label. It simply uses privileges to avoid raising the label as high as taint would raise it.

wguard :: Label l => l -> LIO l s ()

Use wguard l in trusted code before modifying an object labeled l. If l' is the current label, then this function ensures that l' `leq` l before doing the same thing as taint l. Throws LerrHigh if the current label l' is too high.

wguardP :: Priv l p => p -> l -> LIO l s ()

Like wguard, but takes privilege argument to be more permissive.

aguard :: Label l => l -> LIO l s ()

Ensures the label argument is between the current IO label and current IO clearance. Use this function in code that allocates objects--untrusted code shouldn't be able to create an object labeled l unless aguard l does not throw an exception.

aguardP :: Priv l p => p -> l -> LIO l s ()

Like aguardP, but takes privilege argument to be more permissive.

Labeled values

data Label l => Labeled l t

Labeled is a type representing labeled data.

Instances

Label l => Functor (Labeled l)

To make programming easier with labeled values, we provide a functor instance definition.

(Label l, Read l, Read a) => ReadTCB (Labeled l a)

(Label l, Show a) => ShowTCB (Labeled l a)

label :: Label l => l -> a -> LIO l s (Labeled l a)

Function to construct an Labeled from a label and pure value. If the current label is lcurrent and the current clearance is ccurrent, then the label l specified must satisfy lcurrent `leq` l && l `leq` ccurrent.

labelP :: Priv l p => p -> l -> a -> LIO l s (Labeled l a)

Constructs an Labeled using privilege to allow the Labeled's label to be below the current label. If the current label is lcurrent and the current clearance is ccurrent, then the privilege p and label l specified must satisfy (leqp p lcurrent l) && l `leq` ccurrent. Note that privilege is not used to bypass the clearance. You must use lowerClrP to raise the clearance first if you wish to create an Labeled at a higher label than the current clearance.

unlabel :: Label l => Labeled l a -> LIO l s a

Within the LIO monad, this function takes an Labeled and returns the value. Thus, in the LIO monad one can say:

 x <- unlabel (xv :: Labeled SomeLabelType Int)

And now it is possible to use the value of x, which is the pure value of what was stored in xv. Of course, unlabel also raises the current label. If raising the label would exceed the current clearance, then unlabel throws LerrClearance. However, you can use labelOf to check if unlabel will suceed without throwing an exception.

unlabelP :: Priv l p => p -> Labeled l a -> LIO l s a

Extracts the value of an Labeled just like unlabel, but takes a privilege argument to minimize the amount the current label must be raised. Will still throw LerrClearance under the same circumstances as unlabel.

toLabeled :: Label l => l -> LIO l s a -> LIO l s (Labeled l a)

toLabeled is the dual of unlabel. It allows one to invoke computations that would raise the current label, but without actually raising the label. Instead, the result of the computation is packaged into a Labeled with a supplied label. Thus, to get at the result of the computation one will have to call unlabel and raise the label, but this can be postponed, or done inside some other call to toLabeled. This suggestst that the provided label must be above the current label and below the current clearance.

Note that toLabeled always restores the clearance to whatever it was when it was invoked, regardless of what occured in the computation producing the value of the Labeled. This higlights one main use of clearance: to ensure that a Labeled computed does not exceed a particular label.

toLabeledP :: Priv l p => p -> l -> LIO l s a -> LIO l s (Labeled l a)

discard :: Label l => l -> LIO l s a -> LIO l s ()

Executes a computation that would raise the current label, but discards the result so as to keep the label the same. Used when one only cares about the side effects of a computation. For instance, if log_handle is an LHandle with a high label, one can execute

   discard ltop $ hputStrLn log_handle "Log message"

to create a log message without affecting the current label. (Of course, if log_handle is closed and this throws an exception, it may not be possible to catch the exception within the LIO monad without sufficient privileges--see catchP.)

labelOf :: Label l => Labeled l a -> l

Returns label of a Label type.

taintLabeled :: Label l => l -> Labeled l a -> LIO l s (Labeled l a)

Raises the label of a Labeled to the lub of it's current label and the value supplied. The label supplied must be less than the current clarance, though the resulting label may not be if the Labeled is already above the current thread's clearance.

Exceptions

Exception type thrown by LIO library

data LabelFault

Constructors

LerrLow

Requested label too low

LerrHigh

Current label too high

LerrClearance

Label would exceed clearance

LerrPriv

Insufficient privileges

LerrInval

Invalid request

Instances

Show LabelFault

Typeable LabelFault

Exception LabelFault

Throwing and catching labeled exceptions

We must re-define the throwIO and catch functions to work in the LIO monad. A complication is that exceptions could potentially leak information. For instance, within a block of code wrapped by discard, one might examine a secret bit, and throw an exception when the bit is 1 but not 0. Allowing untrusted code to catch the exception leaks the bit.

The solution is to wrap exceptions up with a label. The exception may be caught, but only if the label of the exception can flow to the label at the point the catch statement began execution. For compatibility, the throwIO, catch, and onException functions are now methods that work in both the IO or LIO monad.

If an exception is uncaught in the LIO monad, the evalLIO function will unlabel and re-throw the exception, so that it is okay to throw exceptions from within the LIO monad and catch them within the IO monad. (Of course, code in the IO monad must be careful not to let the LIO code exploit it to exfiltrate information.)

Wherever possible, however, code should use the catchP and onExceptionP variants that use whatever privilege is available to downgrade the exception. Privileged code that must always run some cleanup function can use the onExceptionTCB and bracketTCB functions to run the cleanup code on all exceptions.

Note: Do not use throw (as opposed to throwIO) within the LIO monad. Because throw can be invoked from pure code, it has no notion of current label and so cannot assign an appropriate label to the exception. As a result, the exception will not be catchable within the LIO monad and will propagate all the way out of the evalLIO function. Similarly, asynchronous exceptions (such as divide by zero or undefined values in lazily evaluated expressions) cannot be caught within the LIO monad.

class Monad m => MonadCatch m where

MonadCatch is the class used to generalize the standard IO catch and throwIO functions to methods that can be defined in multiple monads.

Methods

block :: m a -> m a

unblock :: m a -> m a

throwIO :: Exception e => e -> m a

catch :: Exception e => m a -> (e -> m a) -> m a

handle :: Exception e => (e -> m a) -> m a -> m a

onException :: m a -> m b -> m a

bracket :: m b -> (b -> m c) -> (b -> m a) -> m a

Instances

MonadCatch IO

Label l => MonadCatch (LIO l s)

catchP

Arguments

:: (Label l, Exception e, Priv l p)

=> p

Privileges with which to downgrade exception

-> LIO l s a

Computation to run

-> (l -> e -> LIO l s a)

Exception handler

-> LIO l s a

Result of computation or handler

Catches an exception, so long as the label at the point where the exception was thrown can flow to the label at which catchP is invoked, modulo the privileges specified. Note that the handler receives an an extra first argument (before the exception), which is the label when the exception was thrown.

handleP

Arguments

:: (Label l, Exception e, Priv l p)

=> p

Privileges with which to downgrade exception

-> (l -> e -> LIO l s a)

Exception handler

-> LIO l s a

Computation to run

-> LIO l s a

Result of computation or handler

Version of catchP with arguments swapped.

onExceptionP

Arguments

:: Priv l p

=> p

Privileges to downgrade exception

-> LIO l s a

The computation to run

-> LIO l s b

Handler to run on exception

-> LIO l s a

Result if no exception thrown

onException cannot run its handler if the label was raised in the computation that threw the exception. This variant allows privileges to be supplied, so as to catch exceptions thrown with a raised label.

bracketP :: Priv l p => p -> LIO l s a -> (a -> LIO l s c) -> (a -> LIO l s b) -> LIO l s b

Like standard bracket, but with privileges to downgrade exception.

Executing computations

evaluate :: Label l => a -> LIO l s a

Evaluate in LIO.

evalLIO

Arguments

:: Label l

=> LIO l s a

The LIO computation to execute

-> s

Initial value of label-specific state

-> IO (a, l)

IO computation that will execute first argument

Produces an IO computation that will execute a particular LIO computation. Because untrusted code cannot execute IO computations, this function should only be useful within trusted code. No harm is done from exposing the evalLIO symbol to untrusted code. (In general, untrusted code is free to produce IO computations--it just can't execute them without access to ioTCB.)

Privileged operations

data Label l => LIOstate l s

Constructors

LIOstate

Fields

labelState :: s

lioL :: l

lioC :: l

runLIO :: forall l s a. Label l => LIO l s a -> LIOstate l s -> IO (a, LIOstate l s)

Execute an LIO action.

class ShowTCB a where

It would be a security issue to make certain objects a member of the Show class, but nonetheless it is useful to be able to examine such objects from within the debugger. The showTCB method can be used to examine such objects.

Methods

showTCB :: a -> String

Instances

(Label l, Show a) => ShowTCB (Labeled l a)

class ReadTCB a where

It is useful to have the dual of ShowTCB, ReadTCB, that allows for the reading of Labeleds that were written using showTCB. Only readTCB (corresponding to read) and readsPrecTCB (corresponding to readsPrec) are implemented.

Methods

readsPrecTCB :: Int -> ReadS a

readTCB :: String -> a

Instances

(Label l, Read l, Read a) => ReadTCB (Labeled l a)

labelTCB :: Label l => l -> a -> Labeled l a

class PrivTCB t

PrivTCB is a method-less class whose only purpose is to be unavailable to unprivileged code. Since (PrivTCB t) => is in the context of class Priv and unprivileged code cannot create new instances of the PrivTCB class, this ensures unprivileged code cannot create new instances of the Priv class either, even though the symbol Priv is exported by LIO.Base and visible to untrusted code.

Instances

PrivTCB TCBPriv

PrivTCB NoPrivs

PrivTCB HSPrivs

class MintTCB t i where

Methods

mintTCB :: i -> t

A function that mints new objects (such as instances of Priv) in a way that only privileged code should be allowed to do. Because the MintTCB method is only available to priviledged code, other modules imported by unpriviledged code can define instances of mintTCB.

Instances

MintTCB TCBPriv Principal

MintTCB TCBPriv Priv

Label l => MintTCB (LHandle l Handle) (Handle, l)

unlabelTCB :: Label l => Labeled l a -> a

Extracts the value from an Labeled, discarding the label and any protection.

setLabelTCB :: Label l => l -> LIO l s ()

Set the current label to anything, with no security check.

lowerClrTCB :: Label l => l -> LIO l s ()

Set the current clearance to anything, with no security check.

getTCB :: Label l => LIO l s s

Returns label-specific state of the LIO monad. This is the data specified as the second argument of evalLIO, whose type is s in the monad LIO l s.

putTCB :: Label l => s -> LIO l s ()

Sets the label-specific state of the LIO monad. See getTCB.

ioTCB :: Label l => IO a -> LIO l s a

Lifts an IO computation into the LIO monad. Note that exceptions thrown within the IO computation cannot directly be caught within the LIO computation. Thus, if you are not inside a rethrowTCB block, you will generally want to use rtioTCB instead of ioTCB.

rtioTCB :: Label l => IO a -> LIO l s a

Lifts an IO computation into the LIO monad. If the IO computation throws an exception, it labels the exception with the current label so that the exception can be caught with catch or catchP. This function's name stands for "re-throw io", because the functionality is a combination of rethrowTCB and ioTCB. Effectively

   rtioTCB = rethrowTCB . ioTCB

rethrowTCB :: Label l => LIO l s a -> LIO l s a

Privileged code that does IO operations may cause exceptions that should be caught by untrusted code in the LIO monad. Such operations should be wrapped by rethrowTCB (or rtioTCB, which uses rethrowTCB) to ensure the exception is labeled. Note that it is very important that the computation executed inside rethrowTCB not in any way change the label, as otherwise rethrowTCB would put the wrong label on the exception.

class MonadCatch m => OnExceptionTCB m where

For privileged code that needs to catch all exceptions in some cleanup function. Note that for the LIO monad, these methods do not call rethrowTCB to label the exceptions. It is assumed that you will use rtioTCB instead of ioTCB for IO within the computation arguments of these methods.

Methods

onExceptionTCB :: m a -> m b -> m a

bracketTCB :: m a -> (a -> m c) -> (a -> m b) -> m b

Instances

OnExceptionTCB IO

Label l => OnExceptionTCB (LIO l s)

newstate :: Label l => s -> LIOstate l s

Generate a fresh state to pass runLIO when invoking it for the first time.