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From: Stephen Smalley <sds@tycho.nsa.gov>
To: Alexey Budankov <alexey.budankov@linux.intel.com>,
	James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>, Serge Hallyn <serge@hallyn.com>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
	Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@kernel.org>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>,
	"joonas.lahtinen@linux.intel.com"
	<joonas.lahtinen@linux.intel.com>,
	Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>,
	Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>, Paul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org>,
	Helge Deller <deller@gmx.de>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com>,
	Stephane Eranian <eranian@google.com>,
	Igor Lubashev <ilubashe@akamai.com>, Jiri Olsa <jolsa@redhat.com>,
	linux-kernel <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	"intel-gfx@lists.freedesktop.org"
	<intel-gfx@lists.freedesktop.org>,
	"linux-security-module@vger.kernel.org" 
	<linux-security-module@vger.kernel.org>,
	"selinux@vger.kernel.org" <selinux@vger.kernel.org>,
	linux-arm-kernel <linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org>,
	"linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org" <linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org>,
	"linux-parisc@vger.kernel.org" <linux-parisc@vger.kernel.org>,
	oprofile-list@lists.sf.net,
	"linux-doc@vger.kernel.org" <linux-doc@vger.kernel.org>,
	linux-man@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v7 01/12] capabilities: introduce CAP_PERFMON to kernel and user space
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2020 13:22:17 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <00025c5f-d497-f541-710a-bc3ee3665652@tycho.nsa.gov> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <f56fbb5c-1477-44d5-7346-85a1ca0869dc@linux.intel.com>

On 2/17/20 3:06 AM, Alexey Budankov wrote:
> 
> Introduce CAP_PERFMON capability designed to secure system performance
> monitoring and observability operations so that CAP_PERFMON would assist
> CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability in its governing role for performance
> monitoring and observability subsystems.
> 
> CAP_PERFMON hardens system security and integrity during performance
> monitoring and observability operations by decreasing attack surface
> that is available to a CAP_SYS_ADMIN privileged process [2]. Providing
> the access to system performance monitoring and observability operations
> under CAP_PERFMON capability singly, without the rest of CAP_SYS_ADMIN
> credentials, excludes chances to misuse the credentials and makes the
> operation more secure. Thus, CAP_PERFMON implements the principal of
> least privilege for performance monitoring and observability operations
> (POSIX IEEE 1003.1e: 2.2.2.39 principle of least privilege: A security
> design principle that states that a process or program be granted only
> those privileges (e.g., capabilities) necessary to accomplish its
> legitimate function, and only for the time that such privileges are
> actually required)
> 
> CAP_PERFMON meets the demand to secure system performance monitoring and
> observability operations for adoption in security sensitive, restricted,
> multiuser production environments (e.g. HPC clusters, cloud and virtual
> compute environments), where root or CAP_SYS_ADMIN credentials are not
> available to mass users of a system, and securely unblocks accessibility
> of system performance monitoring and observability operations beyond
> the root and CAP_SYS_ADMIN use cases.
> 
> CAP_PERFMON takes over CAP_SYS_ADMIN credentials related to system
> performance monitoring and observability operations and balances amount
> of CAP_SYS_ADMIN credentials following the recommendations in the
> capabilities man page [1] for CAP_SYS_ADMIN: "Note: this capability is
> overloaded; see Notes to kernel developers, below." For backward
> compatibility reasons access to system performance monitoring and
> observability subsystems of the kernel remains open for CAP_SYS_ADMIN
> privileged processes but CAP_SYS_ADMIN usage for secure system
> performance monitoring and observability operations is discouraged with
> respect to the designed CAP_PERFMON capability.
> 
> Although the software running under CAP_PERFMON can not ensure avoidance
> of related hardware issues, the software can still mitigate these issues
> following the official hardware issues mitigation procedure [2].
> The bugs in the software itself can be fixed following the standard
> kernel development process [3] to maintain and harden security of system
> performance monitoring and observability operations.
> 
> [1] http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/capabilities.7.html
> [2] https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/embargoed-hardware-issues.html
> [3] https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/security-bugs.html
> 
> Signed-off-by: Alexey Budankov <alexey.budankov@linux.intel.com>

Acked-by: Stephen Smalley <sds@tycho.nsa.gov>

[...]

  reply	other threads:[~2020-02-18 18:28 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 29+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2020-02-17  8:02 [PATCH v7 00/12] Introduce CAP_PERFMON to secure system performance monitoring and observability Alexey Budankov
2020-02-17  8:06 ` [PATCH v7 01/12] capabilities: introduce CAP_PERFMON to kernel and user space Alexey Budankov
2020-02-18 18:22   ` Stephen Smalley [this message]
2020-02-18 19:21   ` James Morris
2020-02-19  7:54     ` Alexey Budankov
2020-02-17  8:06 ` [PATCH v7 02/12] perf/core: open access to the core for CAP_PERFMON privileged process Alexey Budankov
2020-02-18 19:22   ` James Morris
2020-02-17  8:07 ` [PATCH v7 03/12] perf/core: open access to probes " Alexey Budankov
2020-02-18 19:22   ` James Morris
2020-02-17  8:08 ` [PATCH v7 04/12] perf tool: extend Perf tool with CAP_PERFMON capability support Alexey Budankov
2020-02-18 19:24   ` James Morris
2020-02-17  8:08 ` [PATCH v7 05/12] drm/i915/perf: open access for CAP_PERFMON privileged process Alexey Budankov
2020-02-18 19:25   ` James Morris
2020-02-17  8:09 ` [PATCH v7 06/12] trace/bpf_trace: " Alexey Budankov
2020-02-18 19:25   ` James Morris
2020-02-17  8:10 ` [PATCH v7 07/12] powerpc/perf: " Alexey Budankov
2020-02-18 19:28   ` James Morris
2020-02-17  8:10 ` [PATCH v7 08/12] parisc/perf: " Alexey Budankov
2020-02-18 19:29   ` James Morris
2020-02-17  8:11 ` [PATCH v7 09/12] drivers/perf: " Alexey Budankov
2020-02-18 19:43   ` James Morris
2020-02-17  8:12 ` [PATCH v7 10/12] drivers/oprofile: " Alexey Budankov
2020-02-18 19:44   ` James Morris
2020-02-17  8:12 ` [PATCH v7 11/12] doc/admin-guide: update perf-security.rst with CAP_PERFMON information Alexey Budankov
2020-02-17  8:13 ` [PATCH v7 12/12] doc/admin-guide: update kernel.rst " Alexey Budankov
2020-02-25  9:55 ` [PATCH v7 00/12] Introduce CAP_PERFMON to secure system performance monitoring and observability Alexey Budankov
2020-03-02  0:19   ` [Intel-gfx] " Serge Hallyn
2020-03-02 19:44     ` James Morris
2020-03-26 23:28     ` James Morris

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