Building Trust Into A Multilevel File System
Cynthia E. Irvine · Calhoun: The Naval Postgraduate School Institutional Archive (Naval Postgraduate School) · 1990
File systems are an intrinsic part of any operating system providing support for a general application environment. To help provide general operating system functionality, a multilevel file system is being built to run on the GEMSOS TCB. The process of designing a file system for a multilevel environment, although similar in many respects to that for its untrusted counterpart, should include consideration of factors which will render its structure consistent with the trusted environment upon which it is built. The file system should take advantage of the security mechanisms available from the TCB. In this paper, two techniques are described which contribute to building trust into a file system design. The first is the use of mandatory access controls as a constraining design guide, and the second is the use of the intended discretionary access control policy as a driver for design choices.