Jails

Dec 16, 2013

12 min read

Jun 30, 2023 16:33 EEST

Introduction

Jails are a great way to secure your processes to a virtual system. Though they have more overhead than chroot, (which basically just restricts the root of a process) a jail uses a virtual machine to house your process or processes. This means that far more restrictions can be placed on the jail, and there’s no “breaking out” as can be done with chroot (see links in references).

A few notes first of all. It’s very true what they say in the man page about it being easier to make a fat jail, and scale down to a thin one than vice versa. A few weeks of research (and many make worlds) have helped me discover that.

Also note that as of FreeBSD 5.4 (and likely 6.0) there is no IPv6 support for jails. This is unfortunate because jails tend to monopolize address space after making quite a few of them and address space is what IPv6 is all about. Sure there’s NAT but everyone knows NAT is an ugly hack these days. I can only hope that IPv6 will be supported soon.

Jail Creation Techniques

From what I’ve seen there are three primary ways of creating jails.

MiniBSD

I’ve heard reports of people using MiniBSD to do this, but I haven’t had much luck with it, and I have yet to see a howto explaining how they made it work, it’s a great idea of making an initial thin jail but there’s a million things that can go wrong since it’s very minimal and the service(s) you are trying to run may have dependancy issues.

Using /stand/sysinstall

Other howtos tell to use /stand/sysinstall to go out to the net, download the system binaries, and install specific distributions from the installer. I’ve had little luck with this as well since you run into the problem of not having an interface set up for the installer to use. There’s probably a way to do this but none of the howtos I tried did a very good job of explaining how.

Using make world

This is the way I’ll use here in this tutorial and the way explained in the manpage. You can customize the make file to scale down your distribution and set some optomization flags for your system. The primary drawback is the time it takes to build the world which can be hours depending on your system.

Getting services to not listen to *

First off, we should make sure we get the system so that we have nothing listening on *, to check what what we need to modify issue this command

sockstat|grep "\*:[0-9]"

This should give you a synopsys of all the processes and ports you need to trim down. Here are some hints with your ipv4 addr being 10.0.0.1 and your ipv6 addr being 2002::7ea9

sshd:

edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config
change ListenAddress derivative

ListenAddress 10.0.0.1
ListenAddress 2002::7ea9

httpd

edit /usr/local/etc/apache/httpd.conf (and ssl.conf for https)
change Listen derivative

Listen 10.0.0.1:80
Listen [[2002::7ea9]]:80

slapd

edit /etc/rc.conf
change slapd_flags

slapd_flags='-h "ldapi://%2fvar%2frun%2fopenldap%2fldapi/ ldap://10.0.0.1/ ldap://127.0.0.1/ ldap://[2002::7ea9]/"'

inetd

edit /etc/rc.conf
change inetd_flags ======

inetd_flags="-wW -a yourhost.example.com"

mysql

edit /etc/my.cnf

bind-address=10.0.0.1

postfix edit /usr/local/etc/postfix/main.cf

change inet_interfaces

inet_interfaces = [2002::7ea9], 10.0.0.242

samba (this will get you most of the way there)

edit /usr/local/etc/smb.conf
change the following:

interfaces = 10.0.0.242/24 127.0.0.1
socket address = 10.0.0.242
bind interfaces only = yes

note: if you don’t need wins lookups and netbios name translation

     you can safely disable nmbd. There doesn't seem to be a way
     for nmb to not listen to *:138 anyhow.

To disable nmb go to /etc/rc.conf and replace samba_enable=“YES” with smbd_enable=“YES”

openntpd (xntpd listens on all and cannot be changed)

*edit /usr/local/etc/ntpd.conf
listen on 10.0.0.1
listen on 2002::7ea9

syslogd

* edit /etc/rc.conf
syslogd_flags="-s -s" #For no listening
syslogd_flags="-a 10.0.0.1"

bind

edit your named.conf (may be in /var/named/etc/named.conf)
In the options section:

listen-on { 10.0.0.242; };
listen-on-v6 port 53 { 2002:d8fe:10f1:6:202:b3ff:fea9:7ea9; };
query-source address 10.0.0.242 port *;
query-source-v6 address 2002:d8fe:10f1:6:202:b3ff:fea9:7ea9 port *;

Unrealircd

In the listen section:

listen[::ffff:10.0.0.1]:6667
listen[2002::7ea9]:6667

In the “set { dns {” section

bind-ip 10.0.0.242;

Building your jail for the first time

Creating an appropriate make.conf

You’ll need to run make world (or make installworld) to create your jail. If you don’t want to install the whole kitchen sink you can use the make.conf below. You can put it in your jail for future use and it’ll be used by future port builds inside your jail. One thing I’ve noticed is that make installworld doesn’t seem to respect and MAKE_CONF or __MAKE_CONF variables passed to it so we’ll just put it in /etc/make.conf for now.

Lets first back our current make.conf up:

cp /etc/make.conf /etc/make.conf.bak

And new one in there. Keep in mind, depending on what you want to use this jail for you may want to modify this make.conf. For me this has worked on building a variety of services from ports (inside the jail). I like to name the below file make.conf.jail and copy it to make.conf, then copy make.conf.bak back to make.conf when I’m done building the jail.

NO_ACPI=       true    # do not build acpiconf(8) and related programs
NO_BOOT=       true    # do not build boot blocks and loader
NO_BLUETOOTH=  true    # do not build Bluetooth related stuff
NO_FORTRAN=    true    # do not build g77 and related libraries
NO_GDB=        true    # do not build GDB
NO_GPIB=       true    # do not build GPIB support
NO_I4B=        true    # do not build isdn4bsd package
NO_IPFILTER=   true    # do not build IP Filter package
NO_PF=         true    # do not build PF firewall package
NO_AUTHPF=     true    # do not build and install authpf (setuid/gid)
NO_KERBEROS=   true    # do not build and install Kerberos 5 (KTH Heimdal)
NO_LPR=        true    # do not build lpr and related programs
NO_MAILWRAPPER=true    # do not build the mailwrapper(8) MTA selector
NO_MODULES=    true    # do not build modules with the kernel
NO_NETCAT=     true    # do not build netcat
NO_NIS=        true    # do not build NIS support and related programs
NO_SENDMAIL=   true    # do not build sendmail and related programs
NO_SHAREDOCS=  true    # do not build the 4.4BSD legacy docs
NO_USB=        true    # do not build usbd(8) and related programs
NO_VINUM=      true    # do not build Vinum utilities
NOATM=         true    # do not build ATM related programs and libraries
NOCRYPT=       true    # do not build any crypto code
NOGAMES=       true    # do not build games (games/ subdir)
NOINFO=        true    # do not make or install info files
NOMAN=         true    # do not build manual pages
NOPROFILE=     true    # Avoid compiling profiled libraries

  -  BIND OPTIONS
NO_BIND=               true    # Do not build any part of BIND
NO_BIND_DNSSEC=        true    # Do not build dnssec-keygen, dnssec-signzone
NO_BIND_ETC=           true    # Do not install files to /etc/namedb
NO_BIND_LIBS_LWRES=    true    # Do not install the lwres library
NO_BIND_MTREE=         true    # Do not run mtree to create chroot directories
NO_BIND_NAMED=         true    # Do not build named, rndc, lwresd, etc.

Building the Jail

Now for actually building your jail…

I’m defining JAILDIR here because I’m going to use it in a shellscript style example throughout the rest of this howto.

  -  Let's first make some directories
JAILDIR=/home/jail
mkdir -p $JAILDIR/dev
mkdir -p $JAILDIR/etc
mkdir -p $JAILDIR/usr/tmp
chmod 777 $JAILDIR/usr/tmp

cd /usr/src/

  -  You can replace the below with make installworld if you've built your
  -  world previously
make buildworld
make installworld DESTDIR=$JAILDIR
cd /usr/src/etc
cp /etc/resolv.conf $JAILDIR

make distribution DESTDIR=$JAILDIR NO_OPENSSH=YES NO_OPENSSL=YES
cd $JAILDIR

  -  At this point we'll mount devfs, and then hide the unneeded devs
mount_devfs devfs $JAILDIR/dev
devfs -m $JAILDIR/dev rule -s 4 applyset

  -  Create a null kernel
ln -s dev/null kernel

  -  Quell warnings about fstab
touch $JAILDIR/etc/fstab

  -  Use our existing resolv.conf
cp /etc/resolv.conf $JAILDIR/etc/resolv.conf

  -  Copy our settings for ssl
mkdir -p $JAILDIR/etc/ssl
mkdir -p $JAILDIR/usr/local/openssl
cp /etc/ssl/openssl.cnf $JAILDIR/etc/ssl
cd $JAILDIR/usr/local/openssl/
ln -s ../../../etc/ssl/openssl.cnf openssl.cnf

Make a decent rc.conf:

hostname="jail.example.com"    # Set this!
ifconfig_em0="inet 10.0.0.20 netmask 255.255.255.255"
defaultrouter="10.0.0.1"        # Set to default gateway (or NO).
clear_tmp_enable="YES"  # Clear /tmp at startup.
  -  Once you set your jail up you may want to consider adding a good securelevel:
  -  Same as sysctl -w kern.securelevel=3
kern_securelevel_enable="YES"    # kernel security level (see init(8)),
kern_securelevel="3"

You’ll also want to make an alias on your interface for the ip above so we’ll do something like:

ifconfig em0 10.0.0.20 netmask 255.255.255.255 alias

Now you’ll want to have devfs inside your jail, so to get it working for the first time do this:

mount_devfs devfs $JAILDIR/devfs

And finally, copy your original make.conf back.

cp /etc/make.conf.bak /etc/make.conf

Starting the jail for the first time

OPTIONAL (but probably necessary): You’ll want to mount /usr/ports and /usr/src so you can install ports inside your jail, unless you have another way you want to do this (such as downloading packages).

mount_nullfs /usr/ports $JAILDIR
mount_nullfs /usr/src $JAILDIR

Now we can start our jail

jail $JAILDIR jail.example.com 10.0.0.20 /bin/sh

Once inside the jail you’ll want to start services:

/bin/sh /etc/rc

While you’re here you’ll want to edit your password file since if someone breaks into your jail, and starts cracking it you won’t want them to have the same passwords as your root system has. Also remove all users you don’t need in the jail:

vipw
passwd root

From here, assuming all went well you can do something like:

cd /usr/ports/security/openssh
make install clean

And build your port(s) inside your jail. Once you’re finished be sure to unmount the directories so a compromised jail can’t build more ports.

If you have trouble getting your programs to start inside your jail you can use the methods I outlined in [Chrooting_an_Eggdrop#Figuring_out_what_eggdrop_needs | my chroot tutorial]]. I’ve verified that truss works correctly in a jail so between ldd and truss you should be set.

Also note that if you try to start your jail with just:

jail $JAILDIR jail.example.com 10.0.0.20 /bin/sh /etc/rc

but you have no services/daemons/programs set to run, the jail will simply start and then exit since there’s nothing running inside.

Getting it to start automatically

You’ll now need to put your settings in /etc/rc.conf First put the alias you jail has in there:

ifconfig_em0_alias0="inet 10.0.0.20 netmask 0xffffffff"

Editing the rc.conf

For those of you that are looking to make your own rc script, I don’t recommend it. I’ve found issues getting devfs rules to be applied with the a script, and really this way is much easier. It’s also the standard way and you can attach to jails later on quite easily without using screen (read below).

Here’s the standard rc.conf way of getting your jail to run at startup:

jail_enable="YES"        # Set to NO to disable starting of any jails
jail_list="cell"            # Space separated list of names of jails
jail_set_hostname_allow="NO" # Allow root user in a jail to change its hostname
jail_socket_unixiproute_only="YES" # Route only TCP/IP within a jail

jail_cell_rootdir="/usr/home/prison/cell"
jail_cell_hostname="cell.example.com"
jail_cell_ip="10.0.0.20"
jail_cell_exec_start="/bin/sh /etc/rc"
jail_cell_devfs_enable="YES"
jail_cell_devfs_ruleset="devfsrules_jail"

Jail maintenance

Of course from time to time you may have to upgrade ports in your jail, or the world in the jail itself. This isn’t a big deal either. Instead of using jail (which makes its own IP address and everything) we can use chroot instead which is similar since all we’re using is a simple shell and then we’ll be done with it.

First mount the dirs so they’re accessible in the chroot:

mount_nullfs /usr/ports $JAILDIR
mount_nullfs /usr/src $JAILDIR

Connect to your jail: find the jail id of the jail you are running with jls:

# jls
   JID  IP Address      Hostname                      Path
    1  10.0.0.20       cell.example.com              /usr/home/prison/cell

Now connect to it using the JID:

jexec 1 /bin/sh

To upgrade your world:

cd /usr/src
make buildworld
make installworld

NOTE: If you’ve just done make buildworld previously you can do make installworld and install all the newly compiled binaries again.

To build a port:

cd /usr/ports/sysutils/example
make install clean

NOTE: You may also want to install portupgrade to make port management easier.

When you’re done just exit:

exit

Integrating Portaudit

You’ll notice that portaudit security check only checks the root server, but none of the jails. There are many ways around this, but here’s one:

Create a shell script in a place you keep custom shell scripts. We’ll use /root/bin/metaportaudit.sh

#!/bin/sh

JAILDIR=/usr/home/prison/
JAILS="irc www mysql"
TMPDIR="/tmp"

# First lets audit the root server
/usr/local/sbin/portaudit -a

# Now Lets create temp files of ports in the jails,
# audit the root server all jails
# and delete the temp files
cd $TMPDIR
for jail in $JAILS; do
  echo ""
  echo "Checking for packages with security vulnerabilities in jail \"$jail\":"
  echo ""
  ls -1 $JAILDIR/$jail/var/db/pkg > $TMPDIR/$jail.paf
  /usr/local/sbin/portaudit -f $TMPDIR/$jail.paf
  rm $TMPDIR/$jail.paf
done

Now lets edit /usr/local/etc/periodic/security on about line 55 you’ll want to change:

echo
echo /usr/local/sbin/portaudit -a |
         su -fm "${daily_status_security_portaudit_user:-nobody}" || rc=$?

echo
echo /root/bin/metaportaudit.sh -a |
         su -fm "${daily_status_security_portaudit_user:-nobody}" || rc=$?

Jails in Linux

Now you may think “well I have to use Linux, because xapplication only works on Linux! Well there’s hope. You can mess around with the bsdjail patch (http://kerneltrap.org/node/3823) , or you can install vserver (which has packages in Debian). There’s a great tutorial on vserver in Debian here: Running_Vservers_on_Debian

Null-FS

For 6…

/etc/rc.conf:

        jail_sandbox_rootdir="/local/jails/sandbox/"
        jail_sandbox_hostname="sandbox.pjkh.com"
        jail_sandbox_ip="123.123.123.123"
        jail_sandbox_exec="/bin/sh /etc/rc"
        jail_sandbox_devfs_enable="YES"
        jail_sandbox_mount_enable="YES"

/etc/fstab.sandbox:

        /usr/ports /local/jails/sandbox/usr/ports nullfs rw 0 0

Then once started with /etc/rc.d/jail start sandbox I have this:

% df -h

Filesystem     Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
...
devfs          1.0K    1.0K      0B   100%    /local/jails/sandbox/dev
/usr/ports     3.9G    1.9G    1.7G    52%    /local/jails/sandbox/usr/ports

I also came across this afterward… which I might give a go…

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/url.cgi?ports/sysutils/ezjail/pkg-descr

Looks like it null mounts a lot more (ie /bin /sbin, /usr/lib, etc.)

Examples

I basically set up

/local/jails/master and install according to man jail into this place. I never start this jail.

I happen to use disk backed md devices as the root for each jail. I mount each on on /local/jail/

Then I do

/sbin/mount_nullfs -o ro /local/jails/master/bin /local/jails/adcmw/bin
/sbin/mount_nullfs -o ro /local/jails/master/lib /local/jails/adcmw/lib
/sbin/mount_nullfs -o ro /local/jails/master/libexec /local/jails/adcmw/libexec
/sbin/mount_nullfs -o ro /local/jails/master/sbin /local/jails/adcmw/sbin
/sbin/mount_nullfs -o ro /local/jails/master/usr /local/jails/adcmw/usr
/sbin/mount -t procfs proc /local/jails/adcmw/proc
devfs_domount /local/jails/adcmw/dev devfsrules_jail
devfs_set_ruleset devfsrules_jail /local/jails/adcmw/dev
/sbin/devfs -m /local/jails/adcmw/dev rule -s 4 applyset

In my master jail I have some symlinks so that each jail has its own / usr/local/ that is writable.

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