Maura Dailey
2012-Dec-10 20:18 UTC
[Dovecot] Automatically Cleaning Kerberos Credential Cache Files
I'm in a situation here at work where I'm trying to support a mixed network of OS X and RHEL desktop machines with a Postfix/Dovecot combination. - user account information is stored in LDAP - user credentials are in MIT Kerberos - server is running RHEL 6/Dovecot 2.0.9/Postfix 2.6.6 I am currently using the PAM passdb module to authenticate my users (I began to have trouble with using GSSAPI directly). After I implemented it, a few weeks later, I noticed that some users were no longer getting their mail if they hadn't logged in during the past day. Postfix's mailq showed that hundreds of messages were backing up in the queue. I eventually tracked it down to leftover Kerberos credential cache files (/tmp/krb5cc_????) sitting in /tmp on the mail server. The presence of expired credential files was preventing Postfix from delivering mail to those users' mail spools. If I delete the credential files manually, Postfix immediately delivers the queued emails. Currently, I have a cron job deleting the files manually every night. Obviously, this is a cruddy solution. I have Dovecot configured on a RHEL 6 box. The Pam stack on a RHEL 6 machine uses sssd (pam_sss.so) for authentication with Kerberos, not pam_krb5.so. I'm trying to track down which piece of the puzzle is responsible for cleaning up leftover credential caches. Is there a configuration option I can pass to Dovecot's passdb directly to clean up these cache files? Do others generally have more success using a custom PAM stack with pam_krb5.so instead of pam_sss.so? Poring over sssd's configuration options didn't reveal anything useful. I'm still not sure why Postfix even cares if there are expired credential cache files in /tmp at all. I'm back to trying GSSAPI directly again as well in the meantime on a few test clients. When I used that in the past, users were getting issued duplicate Kerberos tickets and users were forced to log into the mail server directly using SSH after a day in order to get their mail to work (seemingly a related issue). If I get those same errors again, I'll start another thread. The output of doveconf -N: # 2.0.9: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf # OS: Linux 2.6.32-279.14.1.el6.x86_64 x86_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.3 (Santiago) ext4 auth_cache_size = 10 k auth_cache_ttl = 5 hours auth_default_realm = server.com auth_gssapi_hostname = hostname.server.com auth_krb5_keytab = /etc/dovecot/dovecot.keytab auth_mechanisms = gssapi plain auth_realms = server.com auth_username_format = %n auth_verbose = no disable_plaintext_auth = yes listen = * mail_location = maildir:/var/spool/mail/%u mail_privileged_group = mail mbox_read_locks = fcntl mbox_write_locks = fcntl namespace { inbox = yes location prefix separator = / type = private } passdb { driver = pam } protocols = pop3 imap service auth { unix_listener /var/spool/postfix/private/auth { group = postfix mode = 0666 user = postfix } } ssl = yes ssl_cert = </usr/share/ssl/private/mail.server.com.pem ssl_key = </usr/share/ssl/private/mail.server.com.pem userdb { driver = passwd } protocol imap { imap_client_workarounds = tb-extra-mailbox-sep mail_plugins = " listescape" } Thanks for any pointers, Maura Dailey maura at eclipse.ncsc.mil
Ben Morrow
2012-Dec-10 22:31 UTC
[Dovecot] Automatically Cleaning Kerberos Credential Cache Files
At 3PM -0500 on 10/12/12 you (Maura Dailey) wrote:> I'm in a situation here at work where I'm trying to support a mixed > network of OS X and RHEL desktop machines with a Postfix/Dovecot > combination. > - user account information is stored in LDAP > - user credentials are in MIT Kerberos > - server is running RHEL 6/Dovecot 2.0.9/Postfix 2.6.6 > > I am currently using the PAM passdb module to authenticate my users (I > began to have trouble with using GSSAPI directly). After I implemented > it, a few weeks later, I noticed that some users were no longer getting > their mail if they hadn't logged in during the past day. Postfix's mailq > showed that hundreds of messages were backing up in the queue. I > eventually tracked it down to leftover Kerberos credential cache files > (/tmp/krb5cc_????) sitting in /tmp on the mail server. The presence of > expired credential files was preventing Postfix from delivering mail to > those users' mail spools. If I delete the credential files manually, > Postfix immediately delivers the queued emails.This is rather odd. Is krb5-authenticated NFS involved here, or does Postfix's delivery make any other use of Kerberos? The only other thing I can think of is that so many expired ccaches are accumulating that the user goes over their inode quota.> Currently, I have a cron job deleting the files manually every night. > Obviously, this is a cruddy solution.Well, I don't know about that: obviously, it would be a good idea to work out what's going on here, in case it causes anything else to go wrong, but a cronjob clearing out /tmp is a good idea in any case.> I have Dovecot configured on a > RHEL 6 box. The Pam stack on a RHEL 6 machine uses sssd (pam_sss.so) for > authentication with Kerberos, not pam_krb5.so. I'm trying to track down > which piece of the puzzle is responsible for cleaning up leftover > credential caches. Is there a configuration option I can pass to > Dovecot's passdb directly to clean up these cache files?There are two relevant Dovecot settings: passing setcred=yes to the pam passdb will make Dovecot call pam_setcred, and passing session=yes will make it open and immediately close a PAM session. (Probably it ought to wait until the IMAP user logs out to close the session, but currently it can't do that because of the way the passdb lookups are done.) Changing either of these may have an effect, depending on when exactly your PAM module creates and destroys ccaches.> Do others > generally have more success using a custom PAM stack with pam_krb5.so > instead of pam_sss.so?Well, I don't use RH (I use FreeBSD), but I use and would recommend Russ Allbery's pam_krb5.so, which may or may not be the same as the normal pam_krb5.so provided by your system. It has options to control whether and where ccaches are created; assuming Dovecot doesn't need krb5 creds (say, for NFS), you would probably be better off telling it not to create a permanent ccache at all. http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/pam-krb5/> Poring over sssd's configuration options didn't > reveal anything useful. I'm still not sure why Postfix even cares if > there are expired credential cache files in /tmp at all. > > I'm back to trying GSSAPI directly again as well in the meantime on a > few test clients. When I used that in the past, users were getting > issued duplicate Kerberos tickets and users were forced to log into the > mail server directly using SSH after a day in order to get their mail to > work (seemingly a related issue). If I get those same errors again, I'll > start another thread.This certainly does all sound related. What are the ccache files called: are they just /tmp/krb5cc_UID or is there a random portion as well? Are they being created with the correct permissions, and are there any security policies (SELinux or ACLs of some kind) set up which might interfere with their creation or destruction? What happens if you log in as an ordinary user (preferably using the same PAM stack as Dovecot uses), use klist to find the ccache name and 'ls -i' to find its inode number, then manually kinit again? Does the kinit succeed, and does the new ccache have a different inode number from before? Does the ccache file get removed when you log out? Ben
Maura Dailey
2012-Dec-11 00:11 UTC
[Dovecot] Automatically Cleaning Kerberos Credential Cache Files
On 12/10/2012 05:31 PM, Ben Morrow wrote:> At 3PM -0500 on 10/12/12 you (Maura Dailey) wrote: >> I'm in a situation here at work where I'm trying to support a mixed >> network of OS X and RHEL desktop machines with a Postfix/Dovecot >> combination. >> - user account information is stored in LDAP >> - user credentials are in MIT Kerberos >> - server is running RHEL 6/Dovecot 2.0.9/Postfix 2.6.6 >> >> I am currently using the PAM passdb module to authenticate my users (I >> began to have trouble with using GSSAPI directly). After I implemented >> it, a few weeks later, I noticed that some users were no longer getting >> their mail if they hadn't logged in during the past day. Postfix's mailq >> showed that hundreds of messages were backing up in the queue. I >> eventually tracked it down to leftover Kerberos credential cache files >> (/tmp/krb5cc_????) sitting in /tmp on the mail server. The presence of >> expired credential files was preventing Postfix from delivering mail to >> those users' mail spools. If I delete the credential files manually, >> Postfix immediately delivers the queued emails. > This is rather odd. Is krb5-authenticated NFS involved here, or does > Postfix's delivery make any other use of Kerberos? The only other thing > I can think of is that so many expired ccaches are accumulating that the > user goes over their inode quota.Each user has one credential cache file in /tmp on the mail server after logging into Dovecot. We aren't using randomized names, so everything is in the standard format /tmp/krb5cc_uid. We do use KRB5 authenticated (and encrypted) NFS, but we don't deliver mail to home directories. Since all users are "real" users, and our office size is small, everyone has a mail spool directory on the mail server. Postfix is configured to use Dovecot for Kerberos. The relevant lines in its /etc/postfix/main.cf are as follows: smtpd_sasl_type = dovecot smtpd_sasl_path = private/auth smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_mynetworks, permit_sasl_authenticated, reject_unauth_destination smtpd_client_restrictions = permit_mynetworks, permit_sasl_authenticated, reject smtpd_sasl_security_options = noanonymous>> Currently, I have a cron job deleting the files manually every night. >> Obviously, this is a cruddy solution. > Well, I don't know about that: obviously, it would be a good idea to > work out what's going on here, in case it causes anything else to go > wrong, but a cronjob clearing out /tmp is a good idea in any case.Fair enough. And of course, I get a cache file every time I use sudo or log in through a GUI. Those aren't cleaned up either! Maybe I should be deleting credential cache files on all the machines every night. Those cache files have never given me a problem, though.>> I have Dovecot configured on a >> RHEL 6 box. The Pam stack on a RHEL 6 machine uses sssd (pam_sss.so) for >> authentication with Kerberos, not pam_krb5.so. I'm trying to track down >> which piece of the puzzle is responsible for cleaning up leftover >> credential caches. Is there a configuration option I can pass to >> Dovecot's passdb directly to clean up these cache files? > There are two relevant Dovecot settings: passing setcred=yes to the pam > passdb will make Dovecot call pam_setcred, and passing session=yes will > make it open and immediately close a PAM session. (Probably it ought to > wait until the IMAP user logs out to close the session, but currently it > can't do that because of the way the passdb lookups are done.) Changing > either of these may have an effect, depending on when exactly your PAM > module creates and destroys ccaches.I've tried session=yes by itself, but I don't think I've tried it with setcred=yes. I'll throw it in there and give it a try after I send this email.>> Do others >> generally have more success using a custom PAM stack with pam_krb5.so >> instead of pam_sss.so? > Well, I don't use RH (I use FreeBSD), but I use and would recommend Russ > Allbery's pam_krb5.so, which may or may not be the same as the normal > pam_krb5.so provided by your system. It has options to control whether > and where ccaches are created; assuming Dovecot doesn't need krb5 creds > (say, for NFS), you would probably be better off telling it not to > create a permanent ccache at all. > > http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/pam-krb5/I haven't had to configure pam_krb5.so directly before (we use the Red Hat/Fedora configured default, pam_sss.so, which claims to be a one stop shop for LDAP/Kerberos/NIS,etc.), but it does seem to have more options. We certainly don't need credential caches to stick around for email users. All the mail spools are stored on locally mounted storage on the mail server.>> Poring over sssd's configuration options didn't >> reveal anything useful. I'm still not sure why Postfix even cares if >> there are expired credential cache files in /tmp at all. >> >> I'm back to trying GSSAPI directly again as well in the meantime on a >> few test clients. When I used that in the past, users were getting >> issued duplicate Kerberos tickets and users were forced to log into the >> mail server directly using SSH after a day in order to get their mail to >> work (seemingly a related issue). If I get those same errors again, I'll >> start another thread. > This certainly does all sound related. What are the ccache files called: > are they just /tmp/krb5cc_UID or is there a random portion as well? Are > they being created with the correct permissions, and are there any > security policies (SELinux or ACLs of some kind) set up which might > interfere with their creation or destruction?No random portion (the only application we have configured with random ccache names is SSH), just the usual /tmp/krb5cc_uid. Permissions appear correct, they belong to the appropriate user and group accounts. The SELinux permissions are set to: system_u:object_r:user_tmp_t:s0. This is different from the machine's credential cache (system_u:object_r:gssd_tmp_t:s0), but I've disabled and re-enabled SELinux during different parts of my testing and didn't notice any errors. Using GSSAPI directly doesn't create any cached credential files on the server. However, I just verified that I'm still sporadically getting the duplicate tickets (two lines for imap/hostname.server.com at SERVER.COM, with identical expiration dates). It comes and goes. I have a few users testing it for me, and they'll let me know if their logins break tomorrow like they have in the past once the normal log in period elapses. Since the "fix" for that problem is to log into the mail server, I have a hard time testing for the problem myself (being logged into the mail server nearly continuously just now).> What happens if you log in as an ordinary user (preferably using the > same PAM stack as Dovecot uses), use klist to find the ccache name and > 'ls -i' to find its inode number, then manually kinit again? Does the > kinit succeed, and does the new ccache have a different inode number > from before? Does the ccache file get removed when you log out?I've noticed that the ccache files for regular users do not get deleted when they log out. On another user's workstation, I found a ccache file for my account from a week ago (my current session was using a randomly generated SSH ccache file). I ran a command with sudo to force it to reauthenticate with pam_sss, and the timestamp on the ccache file was updated and the inode changed. My best guess is that pam_sss.so just doesn't do ccache cleanup.> Ben >Thanks for taking a look, I appreciate all the suggestions. This problem's been driving me up a wall for weeks now. I only just managed to narrow down the cause in the last few days. If I can't get a fix working in Dovecot, I'll try tackling it from a different perspective. I understand why Dovecot might not be cleaning up credential files (especially if it's just calling PAM normally), but I definitely do not understand why Postfix is behaving the way it does. If I can just get GSSAPI to work, I could probably bypass the problem as well. - Maura Dailey maura at eclipse.ncsc.mil
Joseph Tam
2012-Dec-12 03:13 UTC
[Dovecot] Automatically Cleaning Kerberos Credential Cache Files
Ben Morrow writes:> In any case, it's likely that the delivery process looks in the user's > home directory even if delivery is to a separate mail spool, unless > you've taken steps to prevent this.I can confirm this. I think the reason is that dovecot changes to the user's home directory so that it has a place to dump core. This causes problem for my setup since I user per-user NFS mounts, so a delivery to an internal mailing list caused hundreds of NFS automounts. I patched this behaviour out, but there is probably a more elegant solution (unset MAIL_STORAGE_SERVICE_FLAG_ENABLE_CORE_DUMPS? How?). Joseph Tam <jtam.home at gmail.com> --- ./src/lib-storage/mail-storage-service.c~ Sat May 19 08:42:12 2012 +++ ./src/lib-storage/mail-storage-service.c Mon Jun 25 22:00:57 2012 @@ -615,21 +615,21 @@ - if ((user->flags & MAIL_STORAGE_SERVICE_FLAG_TEMP_PRIV_DROP) != 0 && - (user->flags & MAIL_STORAGE_SERVICE_FLAG_ENABLE_CORE_DUMPS) == 0) { - /* we don't want to write core files to any users' home - directories since they could contain information about other - users' mails as well. so do no chdiring to home. */ - } else if (*home != '\0' && - (user->flags & MAIL_STORAGE_SERVICE_FLAG_NO_CHDIR) == 0) { - /* If possible chdir to home directory, so that core file - could be written in case we crash. */ - if (chdir(home) < 0) { - if (errno == EACCES) { - i_error("%s", eacces_error_get("chdir", - t_strconcat(home, "/", NULL))); - } if (errno != ENOENT) - i_error("chdir(%s) failed: %m", home); - else if (mail_set->mail_debug) - i_debug("Home dir not found: %s", home); - } - } +// if ((user->flags & MAIL_STORAGE_SERVICE_FLAG_TEMP_PRIV_DROP) != 0 && +// (user->flags & MAIL_STORAGE_SERVICE_FLAG_ENABLE_CORE_DUMPS) == 0) { +// /* we don't want to write core files to any users' home +// directories since they could contain information about other +// users' mails as well. so do no chdiring to home. */ +// } else if (*home != '\0' && +// (user->flags & MAIL_STORAGE_SERVICE_FLAG_NO_CHDIR) == 0) { +// /* If possible chdir to home directory, so that core file +// could be written in case we crash. */ +// if (chdir(home) < 0) { +// if (errno == EACCES) { +// i_error("%s", eacces_error_get("chdir", +// t_strconcat(home, "/", NULL))); +// } if (errno != ENOENT) +// i_error("chdir(%s) failed: %m", home); +// else if (mail_set->mail_debug) +// i_debug("Home dir not found: %s", home); +// } +// }
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