From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Subject: [PATCH v2 3/4] perf-security: elaborate on perf_events/Perf privileged users From: Alexey Budankov References: Message-ID: Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2019 16:31:27 +0300 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Jonatan Corbet , Kees Cook , Thomas Gleixner , Ingo Molnar , Peter Zijlstra Cc: Jann Horn , Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo , Jiri Olsa , Namhyung Kim , Alexander Shishkin , Andi Kleen , Mark Rutland , Tvrtko Ursulin , "kernel-hardening@lists.openwall.com" , "linux-doc@vger.kernel.org" , linux-kernel List-ID: Elaborate on possible perf_event/Perf privileged users groups and document steps about creating such groups. Signed-off-by: Alexey Budankov --- Changes in v2: - applied comments on v1 --- Documentation/admin-guide/perf-security.rst | 43 +++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 43 insertions(+) diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/perf-security.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/perf-security.rst index e6eb7e1ee5ad..f27a62805651 100644 --- a/Documentation/admin-guide/perf-security.rst +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/perf-security.rst @@ -73,6 +73,48 @@ enable capturing of additional data required for later performance analysis of monitored processes or a system. For example, CAP_SYSLOG capability permits reading kernel space memory addresses from /proc/kallsyms file. +perf_events/Perf privileged users +--------------------------------- + +Mechanisms of capabilities, privileged capability-dumb files [6]_ and file system +ACLs [10]_ can be used to create a dedicated group of perf_events/Perf privileged +users who are permitted to execute performance monitoring without scope limits. +The following steps can be taken to create such a group of privileged Perf users. + +1. Create perf_users group of privileged Perf users, assign perf_users group to + Perf tool executable and limit access to the executable for other users in the + system who are not in the perf_users group: + +:: + + # groupadd perf_users + # ls -alhF + -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 11M Oct 19 15:12 perf + # chgrp perf_users perf + # ls -alhF + -rwxr-xr-x 2 root perf_users 11M Oct 19 15:12 perf + # chmod o-rwx perf + # ls -alhF + -rwxr-x--- 2 root perf_users 11M Oct 19 15:12 perf + +2. Assign the required capabilities to the Perf tool executable file and enable + members of perf_users group with performance monitoring privileges [6]_ : + +:: + + # setcap "cap_sys_admin,cap_sys_ptrace,cap_syslog=ep" perf + # setcap -v "cap_sys_admin,cap_sys_ptrace,cap_syslog=ep" perf + perf: OK + # getcap perf + perf = cap_sys_ptrace,cap_sys_admin,cap_syslog+ep + +As a result, members of perf_users group are capable of conducting performance +monitoring by using functionality of the configured Perf tool executable that, +when executes, passes perf_events subsystem scope checks. + +This specific access control management is only available to superuser or root +running processes with CAP_SETPCAP, CAP_SETFCAP [6]_ capabilities. + perf_events/Perf unprivileged users ----------------------------------- @@ -156,6 +198,7 @@ Bibliography .. [7] ``_ .. [8] ``_ .. [9] ``_ +.. [10] ``_ .. [11] ``_ .. [12] ``_