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Bug 1784473 - fips-mode-setup breaks the Grub default value handling
Summary: fips-mode-setup breaks the Grub default value handling
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
Classification: Red Hat
Component: crypto-policies
Version: 8.1
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
high
high
Target Milestone: rc
: 8.3
Assignee: Tomas Mraz
QA Contact: Ondrej Moriš
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2019-12-17 14:31 UTC by Renaud Métrich
Modified: 2023-10-06 18:55 UTC (History)
7 users (show)

Fixed In Version: crypto-policies-20200527-1.git0a29b28.el8
Doc Type: No Doc Update
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2020-11-04 01:58:27 UTC
Type: Bug
Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
pm-rhel: mirror+

Attachments (Terms of Use)


Links
System ID Private Priority Status Summary Last Updated
Red Hat Knowledge Base (Solution) 4740831 0 None None None 2020-01-17 14:40:02 UTC
Red Hat Product Errata RHBA-2020:4536 0 None None None 2020-11-04 01:58:40 UTC

Description Renaud Métrich 2019-12-17 14:31:27 UTC 
Description of problem:

Initially, before running fips-mode-setup at all, BLS entries's "options" line looks like the one below:

-------- 8< ---------------- 8< ---------------- 8< ---------------- 8< --------
options $kernelopts $tuned_params
-------- 8< ---------------- 8< ---------------- 8< ---------------- 8< --------

This enables Grub to work just fine when changing the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX line in /etc/default/grub and running grub2-mkconfig, because $kernelopts in /boot/grub2/grubenv is adjusted.

Unfortunately, everything starts breaking after executing "fips-mode-setup --enable".
This leads to "options" line to become STATIC, as shown below:

-------- 8< ---------------- 8< ---------------- 8< ---------------- 8< --------
options root=/dev/mapper/rhel-root ro crashkernel=auto resume=/dev/mapper/rhel-swap rd.lvm.lv=rhel/root rd.lvm.lv=rhel/swap console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8 $tuned_params fips=0 boot=UUID=17c2c80a-afad-4b64-a31b-55b21ced3740
-------- 8< ---------------- 8< ---------------- 8< ---------------- 8< --------

Hence, further modification of GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX line in /etc/default/grub is not taken into account anymore, because $kernelopts in /boot/grub2/grubenv is adjusted *but* $kernelopts is now ignored.
Same happens for $tuned_params.

Note that "fips-mode-setup --disable" doesn't help here because it doesn't restore the entry, just changes "fips=1" to "fip0".


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

crypto-policies-20190807-1.git9b1477b.el8.noarch


How reproducible:

Always


Steps to Reproduce:
1. Execute "fips-mode-setup --enable"
2. Check BLS entries content

Actual results:

Broken "options" line


Expected results:

Something like "options $kernelopts $tuned_params $fips" and a new "fips" variable in /boot/grub2/grubenv managed by fips-mode-setup.
Or /etc/default/grub updated accordingly, appending "fips=1 boot=..."
Comment 1 Tomas Mraz 2019-12-17 16:02:24 UTC 
Why cannot grubby DTRT on BLS enabled system and just modify kernelopts? It is a huge mess and I would really like to know from some expert what should fips-mode-setup do to modify the kernel options without breaking any relevant use-cases.
Comment 2 Javier Martinez Canillas 2020-01-14 14:18:43 UTC 
(In reply to Tomas Mraz from comment #1)
> Why cannot grubby DTRT on BLS enabled system and just modify kernelopts? It

That's what it does when using the grubby --update-kernel=ALL option.

> is a huge mess and I would really like to know from some expert what should
> fips-mode-setup do to modify the kernel options without breaking any
> relevant use-cases.

I've looked at the fips-mode-setup script and I see that's running 'grubby --update-kernel=$default_kernel --args="$fipsopts"' and then 'grub2-editenv - set kernelopts="$kernelopts $fipsopts"'. Since the intention seems to be to update the cmdline for all the entries, I think that instead it should run 'grubby --update-kernel=ALL --args="$fipsopts"'.

With that command grubby will update the $kernelopts variable. The reason why the 'grubby --update-kernel=$kernel --args=$foo' expands the $kernelopts variable and writes the resulting value in the BLS snippet for $kernel is that the user is telling grubby that only wants to modify the cmdline for that entry. So the $kernelopts variable can't be updated since that will affect all the entries.

That's why grubby supports an ALL argument for the --update-kernel option to specify that all the entries should modified, so grubby updates the $kernelopts variable instead of editing the options fields in the BLS files.
Comment 3 Tomas Mraz 2020-01-14 14:37:40 UTC 
Do I get it right that grubby --update-kernel=ALL --args="$fipsopts" would replace both the existing grubby call and the grub2-editenv call?
Comment 4 Javier Martinez Canillas 2020-01-14 14:45:45 UTC 
(In reply to Tomas Mraz from comment #3)
> Do I get it right that grubby --update-kernel=ALL --args="$fipsopts" would
> replace both the existing grubby call and the grub2-editenv call?

That's correct.
Comment 5 Tomas Mraz 2020-01-14 15:01:10 UTC 
OK, thank you. Reassigned back to crypto-policies.
Comment 12 errata-xmlrpc 2020-11-04 01:58:27 UTC 
Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory (crypto-policies bug fix and enhancement update), and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2020:4536
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