Re: Connection policies control

[Daniel Vázquez <daniel2d2art gmail com>]

Hi Thomas, thanks for your response.

I have previously used org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.settings.modify.system to allow or deny authorization of wifi connections. This works in scenario where the policy is focused to allow/deny know connections or fully allow/deny actions or use NM by some users. As you said this is not enough flexible to describe more granulated policies. By other way custom scripting request to the current existing NM PolicyKit org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.* actions will don't provide any advantage for this granularity. Moreover, If asking for a new AP security schema requires launch a connection, at some early point NM should provide some hook or new request to this custom policykit action.

I think that described policy is very usual and widely required and I thought there would be something more widely established already. How is it being solved, what tools are currently used to apply these policies in corporate environments?

Thank you,

El dom., 16 jun. 2019 a las 8:28, Thomas Haller (<thaller redhat com>) escribió:

On Sat, 2019-06-15 at 14:36 +0200, Daniel Vázquez via networkmanager-
list wrote:
> Hi guys!!
>
> I'll want to setup a connect security policy like whitelist rules or
> similar, some like:
> - Users can connect only to any AP with security WPA2
> - User can connect only to any AP in this list [{ssid:wnet01,
> mac:E8:AD:A6:BC:EF:F2}, {ssid:wnet02, mac:B0:BE:76:73:20:8E}, ...]
>
> First, I looking for any configuration option available on nm, but I
> don't found any. Then, I write little script to test it running on
> /etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/pre-up.d/ that runs when AP
> connection is stablished. But, I can see that the script is executed
> after connection is fully stablished and a valid ip obtained. It's
> not desired, I want to test if AP are OK with our policies before
> stablish fully connection, at least before a fully stablished
> connection with IP obtained and other pre-shared data. We want to
> test the policies are ok running script on preparing connection state
> or pre-authentication state or similar earlier stage.
>
> I monitorized nm connection process, and I can see nm manages next
> stages:
>
> wlo1: connecting (prepare)
> wlo1: using connection 'wnet02'
> wlo1: NetworkManager: is now in the 'connecting' state
> wlo1: connecting (need authentication)
> wlo1: connecting (prepare)
> wlo1: connecting (configuring)
> wlo1: connecting (getting IP configuration)
> wlo1: connecting (checking IP connectivity)
> wlo1: connecting (starting secondary connections)
> wlo1: conected
> ...
> ...
>
> How can we run script on first four stages?
> Exist any other way, aproach or recommendation to apply this security
> policies?
>
> Thank you guys!!a


Hi,


NetworkManager uses PolicyKit, see the available policy-kit actions:

 $ nmcli general permissions

and their comment at

  https://cgit.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager/tree/data/org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.policy.in.in?id=7d3a957c98edbc2874e8826e29c90e2fc39c4d70


Also, a profile can be either restricted to a user, by setting

  nmcli connection modify x_dummy connection.permissions "$USERNAME"

or it is not.

Depending on whether a profile is restricted, the user requires different
permissions to be able to perform certain actions. For example,

  org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.settings.modify.system

vs

  org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.settings.modify.own

Another relevant permission to your question is

  org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.network-control


Note that the root user (user-id 0) always gets a pass, regardless of what you configure
in PolicyKit.


In PolicyKit you can write your own scripts to answer requests in any way you want,
but only the existing permissions (PolicyKit actions) that NetworkManager knows are
available there.


I am not sure the system is flexible enough to do exactly what you want. Maybe.


best,
Thomas