Launchpad has imported 2 comments from the remote bug at
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1582169.

If you reply to an imported comment from within Launchpad, your comment
will be sent to the remote bug automatically. Read more about
Launchpad's inter-bugtracker facilities at
https://help.launchpad.net/InterBugTracking.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2019-09-18T15:42:54+00:00 Vineetha Kamath wrote:

Created attachment 9093608
firefox_nss_disable_fips_enabled_flag.patch

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML,
like Gecko) Chrome/76.0.3809.132 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

On a FIPS enabled system, i.e. a system running a FIPS enabled kernel,
/proc/sys/crypto/fips_enabled is set to 1. The libraries that are FIPS
certified reads this flag to decide if they have to operate in FIPS
mode. Firefox's nss bundled code by default reads this flag. Firefox is
not one of FIPS certified libraries and should not be reading this flag.

A bug has been filed against Ubuntu firefox package here -
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/1843044


Actual results:

On a FIPS enabled system. firefox crashes while starting up. An strace
showed that it was repeatedly reading the flag before the crash.


Expected results:

Firefox and its associated nss bundled code are not FIPS certified and
hence should not be reading the /proc/sys/crypto/fips_enabled flag. I
propose to disable reading that flag.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/1843044/comments/8

------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2019-09-18T15:44:48+00:00 Vineetha Kamath wrote:

After applying the patch, no crash was observed on a FIPS enabled
system.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/1843044/comments/9


** Changed in: firefox
       Status: Unknown => New

** Changed in: firefox
   Importance: Unknown => Medium

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop
Packages, which is subscribed to firefox in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1843044

Title:
  firefox crashes on a FIPS enabled machine

Status in Mozilla Firefox:
  New
Status in firefox package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  [IMPACT]
  firefox is not a FIPS certified library. firefox uses bundled nss and on a 
machine running FIPS enabled kernel, nss by default goes into FIPS mode if 
/proc/sys/crypto/fips_enabled=1. This is an untested configuration and since 
firefox with bundled nss is not a certified library we propose disabling 
reading the 'fips_enabled' flag and therefore switching the library 
automatically into FIPS mode. A FIPS customer reported firefox crash on a FIPS 
enabled system and strace showed it was repeatedly trying to read the 
fips_enabled flag from the bundled nss before crashing.

  The proposed patch disables reading the /proc/sys/crypto/fips_enabled
  flag. The users of the library however can force nss into FIPS mode
  via an environment variable. We plan to leave it as is so as not to
  regress existing users who may be using it.

  The issue impacts firefox versions in eoan, disco, bionic and xenial.

  lsb_release -rd
  Description:  Ubuntu Eoan Ermine (development branch)
  Release: 19.10

  Version: 2:3.45-1ubuntu1

  lsb_release -rd
  Description: Ubuntu Disco Dingo
  Release: 19.04

  Version: 2:3.42-1ubuntu2

  lsb_release -rd
  Description:  Ubuntu Bionic Beaver
  Release:      18.04

  Version: 2:3.35-2ubuntu2.3

  lsb_release -rd
  Description:  Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS
  Release:      16.04

  Version: 2:3.28.4-0ubuntu0.16.04

  [FIX]
  This fix proposes to disable bundled nss in firefox reading 
proc/sys/crypto/fips_enabled. We only want fips certified modules reading this 
file and running in fips mode. firefox is not one of our fips certified 
modules, so should not be reading this along with our fips certified modules to 
determine whether to run in fips mode.

  Users who do want to run the library in FIPS mode can do so by using
  the environment variable "NSS_FIPS". We propose to leave it as is so
  as not to regress anyone using this. The user who is using this option
  should be doing so with the awareness.

  [TEST]
  Tested on a xenial and bionic desktop ISO running FIPS enabled kernel and in 
FIPS mode. With the patch fix no crashes were observed when launching firefox 
browser.
  Without the patch fix, firefox crashes.

  Tested on a xenial and bionic desktop ISO running non-FIPS generic
  kernel. With the patch fix, firefox worked as expected and no changes
  were observed.

  [REGRESSION POTENTIAL]
  The regression potential for this is small. A FIPS kernel is required to
  create /proc/sys/crypto/fips_enabled and it is not available in the standard 
Ubuntu archive. For users forcing FIPS through environment variable, nothing 
has changed.

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/firefox/+bug/1843044/+subscriptions

-- 
Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages
Post to     : desktop-packages@lists.launchpad.net
Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages
More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp

Reply via email to