TODO: description
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openSUSE Leap / Tumbleweed
_opensuse_version=$(cat /etc/os-release | grep -Po "(?<=PRETTY_NAME=\").*(?=\")" | sed 's/openSUSE Leap //g' | sed 's/ /_/g'); zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/security/${_opensuse_version}/security.repo && \ zypper --non-interactive --gpg-auto-import-keys refresh && \ zypper --non-interactive install -y secbox && \ unset _opensuse_version -
Git
git clone https://github.com/StayPirate/secbox.git && export PATH=$PATH:$(pwd)/secbox
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Secbox is mainly executed through aliases. For instance: in order to run the containerized tool
osc, you need to executesecbox osc. A set of aliaese for the most commonly used tools are provided via thesecbox --aliascmdline option. This is meant to automatically load aliases by simply adding the following to your favorite shell rc file. (~/.bashrc,~/.zshrc, etc.)eval "$(secbox --alias)"That's a great way to also get any new alias automatically loaded within terminal sessions created after you'll have updated secbox. If you create more aliases don't be shy and submit them via a PR, I'll be glad to merge them.
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This is not mandatory, but if you wonna get the best experience it's important to be aware that some tools are expecting network shares to be mounted in specific paths. To make them properly work secbox manages to make these network resources availabe in the right place. You need to make sure that your host system is allowed to accesses them and authenticate.
SSHFS (prefered)
A better approach is the--sshfsoption. Secbox uses sshfs (no need to install sshfs in your host) to mountdist.suse.de:/mountsanddist.suse.de:/susein the expected paths inside the container. In order to make this option working you need to configure your host to be able to accessdist.suse.dejust by runninghost> ssh distThat can easily be accomplished throught a properly configured
~/.ssh/config. You could use the following stanza template:Host dist HostName dist.suse.de User <YOUR_USERNAME> PreferredAuthentications publickey IdentityFile /path/to/your/keyIn case your ssh keys are manged by the ssh-agent, then you can avoid the last line (IdentityFile), because secbox will automatically talk to the ssh-agent.
To check if your ssh setup is fine, try to access dist via
ssh dist:host> ssh dist Last login: Fri Jul 30 06:32:42 2021 from 2620:113:80c0:8340::11f1 <YOUR_USERNAME>@Dist:~>
If you successfully went through all the above steps you should now be able to use secbox! First of all, ensure your shell has sourced its updated rc-script (open a new shell, manually source it, or manually run eval "$(secbox --alias)").
It's time to check if scebox works as expected, try to run the following example:
host> secbox echo Hello outside world, I\'m running inside the container.
Hello outside world, I'm running inside the container.
Since that's probably your first time running secbox the container will be automatically created, hence you will see some extra output.
Keep in mind that well-designed containers are ephemeral, and that's the case of secbox-image (the container image under secbox's hood). In other words you're free to destroy/replace your running container at your will, it is recreated as soon as secbox is called again and nothing will change from your point of view. Try secbox --destroy -f to delete the currently running container then re-run secbox, like: secbox echo I\'m Mr. Meeseeks! Look at me!.
Last but not least, don't forget secbox --help is your friend.
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Let's start from the beginning, when I joint the security team I've been told to use several home-made tools to accomplish my daily tasks, these tools are a huge varaity of scripts written in many different languages and hosted all together in a common git repository. To be honest I didn't like that and I definetely didn't like the idea of cloning that repo and put its path in my $PATH. Even if I would have done that, it wouldn't been enough... In order to make those scripts working, all the dependencies were required to be manually resolved everytime an error was hit. Ça va sans dire the documentation were almost not existing, but luckly the SUSE security team is a really great place to work in and each team-mate is super willing to help and answer any question. In order to have an easier to maintain setup my idea was to manage a container image in a VCS fashion (git) containing all the required tools and related dependencies and I wanted make it usuable in a trasparent way, I would have worked exaclty as any other team-mate who installed those tools on his host system. Moreover, I was the only one not yet using openSUSE as host operating system and many of these custom scripts only work if ran within a SUSE-based OS... so I really needed a container to have the required OS layout below.
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Secbox is composed by two pieces,
secboxandsecbox-image.-
secboxis the software you can find in this repository and it's the only thing you have to take care of install, configure and use. It's written in bash because portability is an hard-requirement for me. If you check my dotfiles out you can undestand how much I care about portability. -
secbox-imageis the container image where all the needed tools and related dependencies are installed, its also easy to maintain with git since it's just a Dockerfile. In contrast of secbox, it's hosted in our internal gitlab instance, not in GitHub. The reason is because there is a CI/CD pipeline which instructs IBS to rebuild the image at each new tag-push and publish it to our internal registry. I'd love to use GitHub actions instead, but some of the rpms installed at build-phase are in private repositories :(, and only IBS does have access to them.
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As I mentioned above, secbox-image is designed to create ephemeral containers. You are free to mess the container up, destroy, create it again and keep working as usual.
First of all, let's see how to get inside the container:
host> secbox bash [crazybyte@wintermute ~]$ echo I\'m in I'm inQuite easy, right? If you play a little bit with a shell inside the container you will quickly realize you're still the same user as in your host system and you still see the same undeline filesystem (what?)
host> id; pwd uid=1000(crazybyte) gid=1001(crazybyte) groups=1001(crazybyte),1000(autologin) /home/crazybyte host> secbox bash [crazybyte@wintermute ~]$ id; pwd uid=1000(crazybyte) gid=1001(crazybyte) groups=1001(crazybyte) /home/crazybyteThat's a very important thing to understand while using
secbox. It creates a namespace where the current rootless user's UID:GID maps to the same values in the container. When the container is launched, it is running as your UID inside the container and on the host. Moreover, your user's home and temporary folders are mounted as volumes. That means even ifsecboxruns everything inside a container, there are NOT the same security bundaries as you'll get with isolated namespaces. Of course, it's a rootless container so highest level of demage you could achieve is the same as from your host user. Your home folder is shared, hence all the contained files can be read/deleted/changed (if your host user has rw permissions on them). Secbox makes your life easier since it simplify your setup, increase the portability and everybody in the team can share the same setup state. Below I describe how to change your container and make this change available to the rest of the team via the container update process.Inside the container you are in an openSUSE-based OS, so zypper is available. Let's try it!
host> secbox bash [crazybyte@wintermute ~]$ zypper install cowsay Root privileges are required to run this command.Interesting, we can't obviuslly perform any privileged task inside the container since it's a rootless container. But I would like to install new things, make some changes, customize this container. Secbox can help you with that, let's try to run it with the
--rootflag.host> secbox --root !!! ~ Be CaReFuL ~ !!! !!! secbox is a rootless container, that means this root user is mapped !!! !!! with your host crazybyte account. While you can install any package !!! !!! or change any container's file, DO NOT FORGET that your host-user's !!! !!! HOME directory is shared with this container. Any change performed !!! !!! in /home/crazybyte is reflected to your host filesystem. !!! !!! In case you messed up the container, DON'T PANIC! Just destroy and !!! !!! recreate it 'secbox --destroy' and 'secbox echo Hello World' !!! !!! ~ Be CaReFuL ~ !!! wintermute:/home/crazybyte # zypper install cowsay Loading repository data... Reading installed packages... Resolving package dependencies... The following NEW package is going to be installed: cowsay 1 new package to install. Overall download size: 26.2 KiB. Already cached: 0 B. After the operation, additional 29.1 KiB will be used. Continue? [y/n/v/...? shows all options] (y): y Retrieving package cowsay-3.03-lp152.3.3.noarch (1/1), 26.2 KiB ( 29.1 KiB unpacked) Retrieving: cowsay-3.03-lp152.3.3.noarch.rpm ............................................[done (90.3 KiB/s)] Checking for file conflicts: .........................................................................[done] (1/1) Installing: cowsay-3.03-lp152.3.3.noarch .......................................................[done] wintermute:/home/crazybyte # cowsay -f ghostbusters There\'s no ghost in this shell, yet. -------------------------------------- < There's no ghost in this shell, yet. > -------------------------------------- \ \ \ __---__ _- /--______ __--( / \ )XXXXXXXXXXX\v. .-XXX( O O )XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX- /XXX( U ) XXXXXXX\ /XXXXX( )--_ XXXXXXXXXXX\ /XXXXX/ ( O ) XXXXXX \XXXXX\ XXXXX/ / XXXXXX \__ \XXXXX XXXXXX__/ XXXXXX \__----> ---___ XXX__/ XXXXXX \__ / \- --__/ ___/\ XXXXXX / ___--/= \-\ ___/ XXXXXX '--- XXXXXX \-\/XXX\ XXXXXX /XXXXX \XXXXXXXXX \ /XXXXX/ \XXXXXX > _/XXXXX/ \XXXXX--__/ __-- XXXX/ -XXXXXXXX--------------- XXXXXX- \XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/ ""VXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXV""DON'T PANIC this root account inside the container is not mapped to the root user in the host. You can do whaterver you want inside the container, but on the host system you can only achieve the same demage level as if you run secbox without the
--rootflag (see above). -
Any change you did while inside the container (except for files in mounted voulmes) can be reverted just by deleting and recreating the container. The container will be automatically recreated at the next secbox run, and everything will be back to normal (whatever the normality is).
host> secbox --destroy _ ___ ___ ___| |_ ___ _ _ |_ -| -_| _| . | . |_'_| |___|___|___|___|___|_,_| [.] Do you really want to destroy secbox [y/N] y [.] container stopped [.] container autostart disabled [.] secbox container deleted host> secbox bash _ ___ ___ ___| |_ ___ _ _ |_ -| -_| _| . | . |_'_| |___|___|___|___|___|_,_| [*] secbox container not found [.] secbox container created [crazybyte@wintermute ~]$ cowsay "To be, or not to be, that is the question." bash: cowsay: command not foundIt seems the cow can't say anything anymore, any existential question is over.
Let's reinstall
cowsayinside the container and let's see something more. Of course you can use it without entering into the container with a shell all the time. That's ascutally the secbox's straightness! Just run like this:host> secbox cowsay Hi folks ---------- < Hi folks > ---------- \ ^__^ \ (oo)\_______ (__)\ )\/\ ||----w | || ||The missing step is creating an alias in the host and use cowsay as it's installed inside the host operating system itself. :)
host> alias cowsay='secbox cowsay' host> cowsay Hi folks ---------- < Hi folks > ---------- \ ^__^ \ (oo)\_______ (__)\ )\/\ ||----w | || ||I really hope this exaple helped you to understand how all the tools are used in
secbox. The toolsoscfor the host is justsecbox osc, and this alias is loaded wheneval "$(secbox --alias)"is executed inside your shell. -
Now that you know how to customize your container, you don't have to forget that any change you done in a live container will only last until that container is destroyed.
TODO
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If you are wondering why there is not one but two way to automatically mount network resources, then keep reading.
TODO