Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2016 12:40:56 +0200
From: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
To: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@kernel.org>
Cc: Daniel Micay <danielmicay@gmail.com>,
        kernel-hardening@lists.openwall.com,
        Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>,
        Alexander Shishkin <alexander.shishkin@linux.intel.com>,
        "linux-doc@vger.kernel.org" <linux-doc@vger.kernel.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
        Jeff Vander Stoep <jeffv@google.com>
Subject: Re: [kernel-hardening] [PATCH 1/2] security, perf: allow further
 restriction of perf_event_open
Message-ID: <20161019104056.GK3102@twins.programming.kicks-ass.net>
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On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 07:26:02AM -0300, Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo wrote:
> Em Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 12:01:26PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra escreveu:
> > On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 05:15:01PM -0400, Daniel Micay wrote:
> > > It's also worth noting that fine-grained control via a scoped mechanism
> > > would likely only be used to implement *more restrictions* on Android,
> > > not to make the feature less aggressive.
>  
> > > It's desirable for perf events to be disabled by default for non-root
> > > across the board on Android.
>  
> > Right, but this is Android. The knob seems to now also live in Debian
> > (and derived) distros. And there it is utter crap.
>  
> > It completely defeats having perf for a fairly large segment of
> > corporate developers who do not get to have root on their own machines
> > (which is stupid policy but whatever).
>  
> > It similarly defeats development of self profiling JITs and whatnot.
>  
> > A capability would allow people to run perf (or another sanctioned
> > binary), even though in general they cannot do sys_perf_event_open().
> 
> But self profiling JITs would be useful for non-developers, on Android
> (anywhere, really), and for that it would require being able to at
> least, well, self profile, using sys_perf_event_open() by a normal
> process, limited to profiling itself, no?
> 
> This not being possible, self profiling will use some other means, its
> like sys_perf_event_open() never existed for them.

Right, so with capabilities, we could grant the binary the capability to
use sys_perf_event_open().

That would still leave developers of said JIT in a tight spot, because
there'd be no way to set the capability on their freshly compiled
binary.

They'd have to be granted the capability to the user, using pam_cap.
Which would involve corp. IT doing something sensible, ergo, this'll
never happen :-(.