Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2016 14:53:02 -0700
From: Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
To: Steve Grubb <sgrubb@redhat.com>
Cc: linux-audit@redhat.com, wmealing <wmealing@redhat.com>,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-usb@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC] Create an audit record of USB specific details
Message-ID: <20160404215302.GC26580@kroah.com>
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On Mon, Apr 04, 2016 at 02:48:43PM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 04, 2016 at 05:33:10PM -0400, Steve Grubb wrote:
> > On Monday, April 04, 2016 05:56:26 AM Greg KH wrote:
> > > On Mon, Apr 04, 2016 at 12:02:42AM -0400, wmealing wrote:
> > > > From: Wade Mealing <wmealing@redhat.com>
> > > > 
> > > > Gday,
> > > > 
> > > > I'm looking to create an audit trail for when devices are added or removed
> > > > from the system.
> > > 
> > > Then please do it in userspace, as I suggested before, that way you
> > > catch all types of devices, not just USB ones.
> > > 
> > > Also I don't think you realize that USB interfaces are what are bound to
> > > drivers, not USB devices, so that is going to mess with any attempted
> > > audit trails here.  How are you going to distinguish between the 5
> > > different devices that just got plugged in that all have 0000/0000 as
> > > vid/pid for them because they are "cheap" devices from China, yet do
> > > totally different things because they are different _types_ of devices?
> > 
> > This sounds like vid/pid should be captured in the event.
> 
> The code did that, the point is, vid/pid means nothing in the real
> world.  So why are you going to audit anything based on it? :)

Oh wait, it's worse, it is logging strings, which are even more
unreliable than vid/pid values.  It's pretty obvious this has not been
tested on any large batch of real-world devices, or thought through as
to why any of this is even needed at all.

So why is this being added?  Who needs/wants this?  What are their
requirements here?  From what I recall, the author is just messing
around with the USB subsystem and audit as something fun to do, which is
great, but don't expect it to be mergable :)

thanks,

greg k-h