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C2 Functionality and TCSEC

The following C2 requirements specified in the Orange Book are supported by Digital UNIX Version 4.0 running enhanced security:

Audit

The following audit features are provided in Digital UNIX Version 4.0:

The audit system is set up from the command line. Maintenance for the audit subsystem is done from the command line or with the dxaudit GUI.

Digital UNIX Version 4.0 intends to support the POSIX 1003.6 standard for audit when it is approved. The Digital implementation will also provide backward compatibility with the current audit interfaces. For more information, see the guide Security.

Identification and Authentication

Digital's Security Interface Architecture (SIA) allows a single set of identification and authentication (I&A) utilities to work in either the nontrusted system or the trusted (enhanced security) system. By using the secsetup command, you can configure your system to use either nontrusted or enhanced security commands.

The following I&A features are provided in Digital UNIX Version 4.0 running enhanced security:

For more information, see the guide Security.

Object Reuse

Object reuse is a standard feature of Digital UNIX Version 4.0. Object reuse ensures that the physical storage (memory or disk space) assigned to shared objects or physical storage that is released prior to reassignment to another user, is cleared or scrubbed. Examples of object reuse are disk space that is released after a file is truncated or physical memory that is released prior to reassignment to another user to read.

Discretionary Access Controls

Discretionary access controls (DACs) are a standard feature of Digital UNIX Version 4.0. Discretionary access control provides the capability for users to define how the resources they create can be shared. The traditional UNIX permission bits provide this capability.

The Digital UNIX Version 4.0 system also provides optional access control lists (ACLs) to provide object protection at the individual user level.

Setting permissions, including ACLs, is discussed in the Security manual.

System Architecture

Digital UNIX Version 4.0 maintains a separate execution domain for the trusted computing base (TCB) components using hardware memory management to protect the TCB while it is executing. It maintains a kernel address space for the operating system, and maintains separate address spaces for each instance of an executing trusted (or untrusted) application process. Writable address space sharing between processes is controlled by discretionary access controls (DAC), with the default being to disallow sharing. Sharing of read-only address space sections (for example, shared libraries) can be disabled.

Digital UNIX Version 4.0 also protects the on-disk TCB components using discretionary access control. Attempted violations of the DAC protections can be audited so that remedial action can be taken by the system security officer.

In addition, the TCB is structured into well defined, largely independent modules.

Digital UNIX Version 4.0 is designed, developed, and maintained under a configuration management system that controls changes to the specifications, documentation, source code, object code, hardware, firmware, and test suites. Tools, which are also maintained under configuration control, are provided to control and automate the generation of new versions of the TCB from source code and to verify that the correct versions of the source have been incorporated into the new TCB version. The master copies of all material used to generate the TCB are protected from unauthorized modification or destruction.

Integrity

Digital UNIX Version 4.0 provides the capability to validate the correct operation of hardware, firmware, and software components of the TCB. The firmware includes power-on diagnostics and more extensive diagnostics that can optionally be enabled. The firmware itself resides in EEPROM and can be physically write-protected. It can also be compared against, or reloaded from, an off-line master copy. Digital's service engineers can run additional hardware diagnostics as well.

The firmware can require authorization to load any operating software other than the default or to execute privileged console monitor commands that examine or modify memory.

Once the operating system is loaded, system diagnostics can be run to validate the correct operation of the hardware and software. In addition, test suites are available to ensure the correct operation of the operating system software.

The following two tools can be run automatically to detect inconsistencies in the TCB software and databases:

Enhanced Security Administration

The Digital UNIX Version 4.0 operating system provides system administrators with tools to improve the ease of use of administering system security.

Configuring System Security

System administrators can select the security level associated with their system. The default security level consists of object reuse and DAC; by running the secsetup command, system administrators can select enhanced security features. The audit subsystem and ACL subsystem are configurable at kernel link time, regardless of the security level of the system.

Windows-Based Administration Utilities

Three GUIs are provided to deal with the day-to-day security administration on the local machine. Based on OSF/Motif, the enhanced security version dxaccounts (Account Manager under the CDE-based system administration utilities) utility is used to create and enhanced user accounts, modify of system defaults, and the audit mask for users.

The dxaudit GUI controls the administration of the audit system and the generation of audit reports. Administrators have the flexibility to configure the audit subsystem without the requirement of installing additional enhanced security features.

The dxdevices GUI is used to configure secure devices.

The old XSysAdmin and XIsso interfaces are provided for compatibility and will be retired in a future release.

For more information, see the dxaccounts(8X), dxaudit(8X), and dxdevices(8X) reference pages.


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