[Haskell-cafe] GHC 6.6.1 and SELinux issues

[Bryan O'Sullivan]

Alexander Vodomerov wrote:

> I've put GHC in unconfined_execmem_t and it started to work fine.  But
> the problem is not in GHC -- it is in programs compiled by GHC. They
> also require exec/write memory. Only root can grant unconfined_execmem
> privileges, so simple user can not run binaries compiled by GHC. How do
> you solve this problem?

Running "chcon -t unconfined_execmem_exec_t" as root will let you run 
the binaries, which you probably already knew.

The underlying problem is harder to fix: the default SELinux policy 
doesn't allow PROT_EXEC pages to be mapped with PROT_WRITE, for obvious 
reasons.  The solution is expensive in terms of address space and TLB 
entries: map the same pages twice, once only with PROT_EXEC, and once 
only with PROT_WRITE.

There's already a Trac ticket filed against this problem, but Simon 
Marlow marked it as closed because he couldn't test the code he wrote to 
try to fix it, and nobody stepped in to help out at the time: 
http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/738

	<b