fsl: a flow-based security language
DESCRIPTION
FSL: A Flow-based Security Language. University of Chicago Nicira Networks Nicira Networks Stanford University UC Berkeley. Tim Hinrichs Natasha Gude Martìn Casado John Mitchell Scott Shenker. Local Area Networks. Network Policy Examples. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
FSL:A Flow-based Security Language
Tim HinrichsNatasha GudeMartìn CasadoJohn MitchellScott Shenker
University of ChicagoNicira NetworksNicira NetworksStanford UniversityUC Berkeley
Local Area Networks
Network Policy Examples
“Every wireless guest user must send HTTP requests through an HTTP proxy.”
“No phone can communicate with any private computer.”
“Superusers have no communication restrictions.”
“Laptops cannot receive incoming connections.”
NOX: a Network Architecture(Ethane’s successor)
NetworkView
NetworkView
App 1App 1
App 2App 2
App 3App 3
OF Switch
OF SwitchWirelessOF Switch
NOX ControllerNOX Controller
PC
Off-the-shelfhosts
See [Gude2008]
NOX Operation
NOX Operation
SECURITYPOLICY
NOX Operation
FSL
FSL: Flow Security Language
FSL balances the desires to makeexpressing network policies natural and implementing policies efficient.
A Datalog Variant
Syntaxh :- b1,…,bn,c1,…,cm
• h must exist.• Every variable in the body must appear in h. • Nonrecursive sentence sets.
Semantics– Statement order is irrelevant.– Every sentence set is satisfied by exactly one model.
Network Flows
Keywords for constraining flow route: • allow: allow the flow• deny: deny the flow• visit: force the flow to pass through an intermediary• avoid: forbid the flow from passing through an intermediary• ratelimit: limit on Mb/second
•User source•Host source•Access point source
•User target•Host target•Access point target
•Protocol
Keyword: deny
“No phone can communicate with any private computer.”
deny(Usrc,Hsrc,Asrc,Utgt,Htgt,Atgt,Prot) :-phone(Hsrc) , private(Htgt)
deny(Usrc,Hsrc,Asrc,Utgt,Htgt,Atgt,Prot) :-private(Hsrc) , phone(Htgt)
private(X) :- laptop(X)
private(X) :- desktop(X)
Keyword: visit
“Every wireless guest user must send HTTP requests through a proxy.”
visit(Usrc,Hsrc,Asrc,Utgt,Htgt,Atgt,Prot,httpproxy) :-guest(Usrc) , wireless(Asrc) , Prot=http
Operation
Given FSL policy and flow <us,hs,as,ut,ht,at,p>, ask
|= deny(us,hs,as,ut,ht,at,p)
|= allow(us,hs,as,ut,ht,at,p)
{X | |= visit(us,hs,as,ut,ht,at,p,X)}
{X | |= avoid(us,hs,as,ut,ht,at,p,X)}
{X | |= ratelimit(us,hs,as,ut,ht,at,p,X)}
FSL Complexity
Query processing is PSPACE-complete in the size of the policy for an arbitrary query.
When queries are restricted to keywords, query processing takes polynomial time in the size of the policy.
If the tallest possible call stack (path through the dependency graph) is 1, then query processing takes linear time in the size of the policy.
Compilation Example
“No phone can communicate with any private computer.”
deny(Usrc,Hsrc,Asrc,Utgt,Htgt,Atgt,Prot) :-phone(Hsrc) , private(Htgt)
deny(Usrc,Hsrc,Asrc,Utgt,Htgt,Atgt,Prot) :-private(Hsrc) , phone(Htgt)
private(X) :- laptop(X)
private(X) :- desktop(X)
Compilation Example
bool deny (Usrc,Hsrc,Asrc,Utgt,Htgt,Atgt,Prot) {
return (phone(Hsrc) && private(Htgt)) ||
(private(Hsrc) && phone(Htgt));}
bool private(X) {return laptop(X) || desktop(X);
}
Assume the existence of functions for phone, laptop, desktop.
Deployment Experiences
• On a small internal network (about 50 hosts), NOX has been in use over a year, and FSL has been in use for 10 months.
• We are preparing for two larger deployments (of hundreds and thousands of hosts).
• So far, policies are expressed over just a few classes of objects. Thus, we expect policies to grow slowly with the
number of principals.
Questions
[Gude2008] N. Gude, et. al. NOX: Towards an Operating System for Networks. Computer Communications Review 2008.
[Hinrichs2009] T. Hinrichs, et. al. Design and Implementation of a Flow-based Security Language. Under review. Available upon request.
References
Related Work ComparisonLimitations• Not using FOL, Modal logic, Linear logic• No existential variables• No recursion• Fixed conflict resolution scheme• No delegation• No history/future-dependent policies• Centralized enforcement• Limited metalevel operations
Novel language features• Access control decisions are constraints.• Conflict resolution produces constraint set
For citations, see [Hinrichs2009].
Backup
FSL Features
• Logical language: Distributed policy authorship• External references• Conflicts, conflict detection, conflict resolution• Incremental policy authorship via priorities• Analyzability• High Performance: 104-105 queries/second
Layered language:
Logic Data
Keywords
Conflicts
Prioritization
Conflicts
Conflicts are vital in collaborative settings because they allow administrators to express their true intentions.
Authorization systems cannot enforce conflicting security policies.
denyavoid
visitallow
ratelimit
denyavoidvisitallowratelimit
FSL Usage Overview
CombinedPolicy
AnalysisEngine
AuthorizationSystem
Policy1
Policyn
…
Conflict Resolution
• No conflicts: conflicts are errors.
• Most restrictive: choose instructions that give users the least rights.
• Most permissive: choose policy instructions that give users the most rights.
• Cancellation: a flow with conflicting constraints has no constraints.
Conflict Resolution as a Tool
Fixing the conflict resolution mechanism allows certain policies to be expressed very simply.
Example (Open Policy): allow everything not explicitly denied.
allow(Usrc,Hsrc,Asrc,Utgt,Htgt,Atgt,Prot)
deny(Usrc,Hsrc,Asrc,Utgt,Htgt,Atgt,Prot) :-
phone(Hsrc) , private(Htgt)deny(Usrc,Hsrc,Asrc,Utgt,Htgt,Atgt,Prot) :-
private(Hsrc) , phone(Htgt)
Incremental Policy Authoring
To tighten a FSL policy, one needs only to add statements to it.
The conflict resolution strategy ensures that the most restrictive constraints are used.
To relax a FSL policy, it is therefore insufficient to simply add statements.
Prioritized Policies
Borrow a mechanism from Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
To relax security incrementally, FSL allows one policy to be overridden by another policy.
P1 < P2
A request constrained by P2 is only constrained by P2.
Example
P1
P2
allow(Usrc,Hsrc,Asrc,Utgt,Htgt,Atgt,Prot) Usrc=ceo
allow(Usrc,Hsrc,Asrc,Utgt,Htgt,Atgt,Prot) :- superuser(Usrc)
superuser(bob)superuser(alice)deny(Usrc,Hsrc,Asrc,Utgt,Htgt,Atgt,Prot) :- phone(Hsrc) , private(Htgt)
deny(Usrc,Hsrc,Asrc,Utgt,Htgt,Atgt,Prot) :- private(Hsrc) , phone(Htgt)
private(X) :- laptop(X)private(X) :- desktop(X)
visit(Usrc,Hsrc,Asrc,Utgt,Htgt,Atgt,Prot,httpproxy) :- guest(Usrc) , wireless(Asrc) , Prot=http
allow(Usrc,Hsrc,Asrc,Utgt,Htgt,Atgt,ssh) :- guest(Usrc) , server(Htgt)
Cascaded Policy Combination
Combined Policy
Policy1,1
Policy1,2
Policy1,m1…
Policyn,1
Policyn,2
Policyn,mn…
…
Cascaded Policy Combination
Combined Policy
Policy1
Policyn
…
1. Flatten cascades.2. Combine results.
Features
• Distributed policy authorship• External references• Conflict detection/resolution• Incremental policy authorship via priorities• Analyzability• High Performance: 104 queries/second
Layered language:
Logic Data
Keywords
Conflict Resolution
Prioritization
Analysis Algorithms
Flattened Cascade: a policy cascade expressed as a flat policy.
Group Normal Form: every rule body consists only of external references (and =).
Conflict Conditions: conditions on external references under which there will be a conflict.
Conflict-free Normal Form: equivalent policy (under conflict resolution) without conflicts.
10-5 seconds
true && false 2.7 x 10-9
function f (x y) (x && y)) f(true,false) 3.8 x 10-8
equalp (“mary had a little lamb”, “Mary Had A Little Lamb”)
2.1 x 10-6
samep (p(X,Y,X,a), p(Z,T,Z,a)) 6.7 x 10-6
matchp (p(X,Y,X,a), p(b,c,b,a)) 7.3 x 10-6
mgup (p(X,c,X,a), p(b,T,Z,a)) 1.3 x 10-5
unifyp (p(X,c,X,a), p(b,T,Z,a)) 2.7 x 10-5
Operation Avg. Seconds
Implementation Tests
Flows/s Mem (MB)
Rule Matches
0 rules 103,699 0 0
100 rules 100,942 1 2
500 rules 85,373 1 4
1,000 rules 76,336 2 10
5,000 rules 54,416 9 30
10,000 rules 46,956 38 52
Ongoing Work
Currently, each flow initiation requires contacting a central controller.
The route for that flow is cached at the router.
Working to generalize this caching scheme. Each trip to the central controller caches more than
just the route for one flow.