Saint2012 mod process security

Access Control Architecture Separating Privilege by a Thread on a Web Server

- mod_process_security -

Ryosuke MATSUMOTO, Yasuo OKABE

Kyoto University

2012/7/18 SAINT2012 Izmir 1

Content

1. Introduction

2. Access Control on Web Servers

3. Proposed Access Control Architecture

4. Experiment and Evaluation

5. Conclusion

2012/7/18 SAINT2012 Izmir 2

Content

1. Introduction

2. Access Control on Web Servers

3. Proposed Access Control Architecture

4. Experiment and Evaluation

5. Conclusion

2012/7/18 SAINT2012 Izmir 3

Background

• Deployment of Cloud Computing – Cost: Reducing the total cost off ownership (TCO), including hardware,

software and operation – Security: Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability

• PaaS (Platform as a Service): Large-Scale Shared Web Hosting Service, or so-called “Virtual Hosting” – Many Web sites share a single Operating System as well as HW resource. – Separation among sites is implemented using mechanism ether in OS or

in the Web server.

• Discretionary Access Control (DAC) : the access control model on UNIX and Windows OS "as a means of restricting access to objects based on the identity of subjects and/or groups to which they belong. …” (wikipedia) – There exist some issues both in security and performance.

• Ex) suEXEC for CGI on Apache HTTP Server

– CGI method: low performance

Executing dynamic contents securely and fast on large-scale shared Web hosting service

2012/7/18 SAINT2012 Izmir 4

Dynamic Contents on Web Servers

• CGI is low-performance

• DSO (Dynamic Shared Object) is enough fast, but…

Server Process

CGI Process

Program

Server Process

Program

CGI DSO

A built-in Interpreter

bottleneck

Engineers’ needs to use DSO on a shared web hosting.

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Problem in Dynamic Contents

Problem in access controls – DSO

• Architecture separating privilege by a server process

• Serious performance degradation when securely executed

– CGI • Architecture separating privilege by a CGI process each

• Intrinsically low performance in creating a child process

– Existing access controls are provided by the execution methods each. • CGI , DSO, or other Interpreters

• Complicated and user-unfriendly settings

In executing dynamic contents on a shared Web hosting service, – Use of CGI is almost mandatory for security

– If using DSO, separating privilege by a daemon process or VM

⇒ Too much overhead 2012/7/18 SAINT2012 Izmir 6

Our Research

“Secure and high-performance access control architecture on large-scale shared Web virtual hosting”

• We propose a thread-based security mechanism, and implement as a module “mod_process_security”

– Architecture separating privilege by thread

• Very little performance degradation using DSO

• Enough security

• Independent from the program execution method, either CGI or DSO

– As an module for Apache HTTP Server on Linux

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Content

• Introduction

• Access Control on Web Server

• Proposed Access Control Architecture

• Experiment and Evaluation

• Conclusion

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Overview of Access Control on a Web Server • Apache HTTP Server (not using access controls)

– Using VirtualHost for a huge number of hosts. – Handling all requests by the privilege of server processes. – Files can be read via programs of any other host areas.

• Basic architecture of access controls – Executing dynamic contents with the privilege of the contents. – Preventing access to other virtual host area. – suEXEC, mod_suid2 or mod_ruid2 and so on…

OS Web Service A Web Service B

Virtual Host B Virtual Host A

×

×

×

×

Single server process

Setting the privilege of the contents at each host area.

2012/7/18 SAINT2012 Izmir 9

execve()

Child Server Process （owner : apache）

CGI Process （owner : root）

index.php (owner: user1)

fork() execve() suexec-program

CGI Process （owner : user1）

setuid(), setgid()

terminate process

Parent Server Process （owner : root）

bottleneck

CGI suEXEC Archtecture

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execve()



Set capability


Set cap(Linux capability)

Child Server Process （owner : user1） Set capability

setuid(), setgid()

setuid(), setgid() terminate process

×

DSO mod_ruid2 Architechture

bottleneck

Unset cap

Changing the privilege of Server Process × 2012/7/18 SAINT2012 Izmir 11

Contents

• Introduction

• Exsiting Access Control on Web Server



• Conclusion

2012/7/18 SAINT2012 Izmir 12

Proposed Access Control Architecture - mod_process_security -

1. Reducing the bottleneck using a thread

• separating privilege by a controlling thread

• Need not to terminate server processes

• Creating a thread instead of forking a process

2. Independent of executing methods

• Need not to install a software individually for CGI or DSO

3. Installation and setting are easy

• Apache module

• User-friendly specification

2012/7/18 SAINT2012 Izmir 13

execve()


Control Thread （owner : apache）


Create thread, set cap

Control Thread （owner : user1）

setuid・setgid, unset cap

destroy thread


CGI mod_process_security

CGI Process （owner : user1）

terminate process

CGI Specification

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Control Thread （owner : apache）

Create thread, set cap

Control Thread （owner : user1）

setuid・setgid, unset cap

destroy thread


DSO mod_process_security

execve()


DSO Specification

2012/7/18 SAINT2012 Izmir 15

Contents

• Introduction




• Conclusion

2012/7/18 SAINT2012 Izmir 16

Experiment

Clinent Machine

CPU Intel Core2Duo E8400 3.00GHz

Memory 4GB

NIC Realtek RTL8111/8168B 1Gbps

OS CentOS 5.6

Web Server Machine

CPU Intel Xeon X5355 2.66GHz

Memory 8GB

NIC Broadcom BCM5708 1Gbps

OS CentOS 5.6

Middle Ware Apache 2.2

• Measuring response per second from a Web server • Generating requests per second from a client to a Web server

• Evaluation of throughput by changing the number of requests • Evaluation of throughput by using each access controls

• Printing phpinfo program（54KB）, Benchmark software（httperf 0.9.0）

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Throughput

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

Re

spo

nse

s/se

c

Requests/sec

DSO(mod_process_security) DSO(not using access control）

DSO（mod_ruid2) CGI(not using access control）

CGI（suEXEC) CGI（mod_process_security)

DSO(mod_process_security ): Low throughput degradation

DSO(mod_ruid2）: about 4.5 responses for all requests

Access control for CGI Low performance degradation

CGI (Magnified in the next slide)

DSO

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Throughput for CGI

100

120

140

160

180

200

100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000

Re

spo

nse

s/se

c

Requests/sec

CGI(not using access control) CGI(suexec) CGI(mod_process_security)

Not using access control、mod_process_secuiry、suEXEC

2012/7/18 SAINT2012 Izmir 19

Contents

• Introduction




• Conclusion

2012/7/18 SAINT2012 Izmir 20

Conclusion

1. High performance and secure access control on multitenant apprications

– High performance access control architecture for DSO

– Use computing resource efficiently ⇒ Low cost

2. Independent of executing methods like CGI or DSO

– Easy to install

– user-friendly setting

⇒ In this architecture, you can withstand the advancement of Web services considering multitenant

applications and low cost hosting services 2012/7/18 SAINT2012 Izmir 21

Future Research Plans

• Encourage using mod_process_scurity

– Now relesing in https://modules.apache.org/

• We plan to design new virtual host architecture by combining mod_process_security with the module that can manage resources more flexibility on each virtual host.

2012/7/18 SAINT2012 Izmir 22

https://modules.apache.org/



Saint2012 mod process security

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