Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2017 14:51:05 -0700
From: Ram Pai <linuxram@us.ibm.com>
To: Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org>
Cc: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@intel.com>, linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-arch@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-mm@kvack.org, x86@kernel.org, linux-doc@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-kselftest@vger.kernel.org, arnd@arndb.de, corbet@lwn.net,
        mingo@redhat.com, paulus@samba.org, aneesh.kumar@linux.vnet.ibm.com,
        akpm@linux-foundation.org, khandual@linux.vnet.ibm.com
Subject: Re: [RFC v5 12/38] mm: ability to disable execute permission on a
 key at creation
Reply-To: Ram Pai <linuxram@us.ibm.com>
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 <3bd2ffd4-33ad-ce23-3db1-d1292e69ca9b@intel.com>
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On Wed, Jul 12, 2017 at 07:29:37AM +1000, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
> On Tue, 2017-07-11 at 11:11 -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> > On 07/05/2017 02:21 PM, Ram Pai wrote:
> > > Currently sys_pkey_create() provides the ability to disable read
> > > and write permission on the key, at  creation. powerpc  has  the
> > > hardware support to disable execute on a pkey as well.This patch
> > > enhances the interface to let disable execute  at  key  creation
> > > time. x86 does  not  allow  this.  Hence the next patch will add
> > > ability  in  x86  to  return  error  if  PKEY_DISABLE_EXECUTE is
> > > specified.
> 
> That leads to the question... How do you tell userspace.
> 
> (apologies if I missed that in an existing patch in the series)
> 
> How do we inform userspace of the key capabilities ? There are at least
> two things userspace may want to know already:
> 
>  - What protection bits are supported for a key

the userspace is the one which allocates the keys and enables/disables the
protection bits on the key. the kernel is just a facilitator. Now if the
use space wants to know the current permissions on a given key, it can
just read the AMR/PKRU register on powerpc/intel respectively.

> 
>  - How many keys exist

There is no standard way of finding this other than trying to allocate
as many till you fail.  A procfs or sysfs file can be added to expose
this information.

> 
>  - Which keys are available for use by userspace. On PowerPC, the
> kernel can reserve some keys for itself, so can the hypervisor. In
> fact, they do.

this information can be exposed through /proc or /sysfs

I am sure there will be more demands and requirements as applications
start leveraging these feature.

RP
> 
> Cheers,
> Ben.

-- 
Ram Pai