Re: new seccomp mode aims to improve performance

[Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>]

On Mon, Jun 01, 2020 at 12:11:37PM +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> On Fr, 29.05.20 12:27, Kees Cook (keescook@chromium.org) wrote:
> 
> > # grep ^Seccomp_filters /proc/$(pidof systemd-resolved)/status
> > Seccomp_filters:        32
> >
> > # grep SystemCall /lib/systemd/system/systemd-resolved.service
> > SystemCallArchitectures=native
> > SystemCallErrorNumber=EPERM
> > SystemCallFilter=@system-service
> >
> > I'd like to better understand what they're doing, but haven't had time
> > to dig in. (The systemd devel mailing list requires subscription, so
> > I've directly CCed some systemd folks that have touched seccomp there
> > recently. Hi! The starts of this thread is here[4].)
> 
> Hmm, so on x86-64 we try to install our seccomp filters three times:
> for the x86-64 syscall ABI, for the i386 syscall ABI and for the x32
> syscall ABI. Not all of the filters we apply work on all ABIs though,
> because syscalls are available on some but not others, or cannot
> sensibly be matched on some (because of socketcall, ipc and such
> multiplexed syscalls).
>
> [...]

Thanks for the details on this! That helps me understand what's
happening much better. :)

> An easy improvement is probably if libseccomp would now start refusing
> to install x32 seccomp filters altogether now that x32 is entirely
> dead? Or are the entrypoints for x32 syscalls still available in the
> kernel? How could userspace figure out if they are available? If
> libseccomp doesn't want to add code for that, we probably could have
> that in systemd itself too...

Would it make sense to provide a systemd setting for services to declare
"no compat" or "no x32" (I'm not sure what to call this mode more
generically, "no 32-bit allocation ABI"?) Then you can just install
a single merged filter for all the native syscalls that starts with
"if not native, reject"?

(Or better yet: make the default for filtering be "native only", and
let services opt into other ABIs?)

-- 
Kees Cook