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From: "Toke Høiland-Jørgensen" <toke@redhat.com>
To: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
Cc: Andrii Nakryiko <andrii@kernel.org>,
	bpf@vger.kernel.org, linux-security-module@vger.kernel.org,
	keescook@chromium.org, lennart@poettering.net, cyphar@cyphar.com,
	luto@kernel.org, kernel-team@meta.com, sargun@sargun.me
Subject: Re: [PATCH RESEND v3 bpf-next 00/14] BPF token
Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2023 01:33:28 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <87pm57b6bb.fsf@toke.dk> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20230704-vielversprechend-zollfrei-a2a148f2699b@brauner>

Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org> writes:

> On Fri, Jun 30, 2023 at 01:15:47AM +0200, Toke Høiland-Jørgensen wrote:
>> Andrii Nakryiko <andrii@kernel.org> writes:
>> 
>> > This patch set introduces new BPF object, BPF token, which allows to delegate
>> > a subset of BPF functionality from privileged system-wide daemon (e.g.,
>> > systemd or any other container manager) to a *trusted* unprivileged
>> > application. Trust is the key here. This functionality is not about allowing
>> > unconditional unprivileged BPF usage. Establishing trust, though, is
>> > completely up to the discretion of respective privileged application that
>> > would create a BPF token, as different production setups can and do achieve it
>> > through a combination of different means (signing, LSM, code reviews, etc),
>> > and it's undesirable and infeasible for kernel to enforce any particular way
>> > of validating trustworthiness of particular process.
>> >
>> > The main motivation for BPF token is a desire to enable containerized
>> > BPF applications to be used together with user namespaces. This is currently
>> > impossible, as CAP_BPF, required for BPF subsystem usage, cannot be namespaced
>> > or sandboxed, as a general rule. E.g., tracing BPF programs, thanks to BPF
>> > helpers like bpf_probe_read_kernel() and bpf_probe_read_user() can safely read
>> > arbitrary memory, and it's impossible to ensure that they only read memory of
>> > processes belonging to any given namespace. This means that it's impossible to
>> > have namespace-aware CAP_BPF capability, and as such another mechanism to
>> > allow safe usage of BPF functionality is necessary. BPF token and delegation
>> > of it to a trusted unprivileged applications is such mechanism. Kernel makes
>> > no assumption about what "trusted" constitutes in any particular case, and
>> > it's up to specific privileged applications and their surrounding
>> > infrastructure to decide that. What kernel provides is a set of APIs to create
>> > and tune BPF token, and pass it around to privileged BPF commands that are
>> > creating new BPF objects like BPF programs, BPF maps, etc.
>> 
>> So a colleague pointed out today that the Seccomp Notify functionality
>> would be a way to achieve your stated goal of allowing unprivileged
>> containers to (selectively) perform bpf() syscall operations. Christian
>> Brauner has a pretty nice writeup of the functionality here:
>> https://people.kernel.org/brauner/the-seccomp-notifier-new-frontiers-in-unprivileged-container-development
>
> I'm amazed you read this. :)

I found it quite an enjoyable read, actually :)

> The seccomp notifier comes with a lot of caveats. I think it would be
> impractical if not infeasible to handle bpf() delegation.

Right, thank you for chiming in and explaining the context. I replied
elsewhere in the thread on the content, so let's not fork the discussion
any more than we have to...

-Toke


  reply	other threads:[~2023-07-04 23:33 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 48+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2023-06-29  5:18 [PATCH RESEND v3 bpf-next 00/14] BPF token Andrii Nakryiko
2023-06-29  5:18 ` [PATCH RESEND v3 bpf-next 01/14] bpf: introduce BPF token object Andrii Nakryiko
2023-07-04 12:43   ` Christian Brauner
2023-07-04 13:34     ` Christian Brauner
2023-07-04 23:28     ` Toke Høiland-Jørgensen
2023-07-05  7:20       ` Daniel Borkmann
2023-07-05  8:45         ` Christian Brauner
2023-07-05 12:34           ` Toke Høiland-Jørgensen
2023-07-05 14:16     ` Paul Moore
2023-07-05 14:42       ` Christian Brauner
2023-07-05 16:00         ` Paul Moore
2023-07-05 21:38         ` Andrii Nakryiko
2023-07-06 11:32           ` Toke Høiland-Jørgensen
2023-07-06 20:37             ` Andrii Nakryiko
2023-07-07 13:04               ` Toke Høiland-Jørgensen
2023-07-07 17:58                 ` Andrii Nakryiko
2023-07-07 22:00                   ` Toke Høiland-Jørgensen
2023-07-07 23:58                     ` Andrii Nakryiko
2023-07-10 23:42                       ` Djalal Harouni
2023-07-11 13:33           ` Christian Brauner
2023-07-11 22:06             ` Andrii Nakryiko
2023-06-29  5:18 ` [PATCH RESEND v3 bpf-next 02/14] libbpf: add bpf_token_create() API Andrii Nakryiko
2023-06-29  5:18 ` [PATCH RESEND v3 bpf-next 03/14] selftests/bpf: add BPF_TOKEN_CREATE test Andrii Nakryiko
2023-06-29  5:18 ` [PATCH RESEND v3 bpf-next 04/14] bpf: add BPF token support to BPF_MAP_CREATE command Andrii Nakryiko
2023-06-29  5:18 ` [PATCH RESEND v3 bpf-next 05/14] libbpf: add BPF token support to bpf_map_create() API Andrii Nakryiko
2023-06-29  5:18 ` [PATCH RESEND v3 bpf-next 06/14] selftests/bpf: add BPF token-enabled test for BPF_MAP_CREATE command Andrii Nakryiko
2023-06-29  5:18 ` [PATCH RESEND v3 bpf-next 07/14] bpf: add BPF token support to BPF_BTF_LOAD command Andrii Nakryiko
2023-06-29  5:18 ` [PATCH RESEND v3 bpf-next 08/14] libbpf: add BPF token support to bpf_btf_load() API Andrii Nakryiko
2023-06-29  5:18 ` [PATCH RESEND v3 bpf-next 09/14] selftests/bpf: add BPF token-enabled BPF_BTF_LOAD selftest Andrii Nakryiko
2023-06-29  5:18 ` [PATCH RESEND v3 bpf-next 10/14] bpf: add BPF token support to BPF_PROG_LOAD command Andrii Nakryiko
2023-06-29  5:18 ` [PATCH RESEND v3 bpf-next 11/14] bpf: take into account BPF token when fetching helper protos Andrii Nakryiko
2023-06-29  5:18 ` [PATCH RESEND v3 bpf-next 12/14] bpf: consistenly use BPF token throughout BPF verifier logic Andrii Nakryiko
2023-06-29  5:18 ` [PATCH RESEND v3 bpf-next 13/14] libbpf: add BPF token support to bpf_prog_load() API Andrii Nakryiko
2023-06-29  5:18 ` [PATCH RESEND v3 bpf-next 14/14] selftests/bpf: add BPF token-enabled BPF_PROG_LOAD tests Andrii Nakryiko
2023-06-29 23:15 ` [PATCH RESEND v3 bpf-next 00/14] BPF token Toke Høiland-Jørgensen
2023-06-30 18:25   ` Andrii Nakryiko
2023-07-04  9:38     ` Christian Brauner
2023-07-04 23:20     ` Toke Høiland-Jørgensen
2023-07-05 12:57       ` Stefano Brivio
2023-07-02  6:59   ` Djalal Harouni
2023-07-04  9:51   ` Christian Brauner
2023-07-04 23:33     ` Toke Høiland-Jørgensen [this message]
2023-07-05 20:39     ` Andrii Nakryiko
2023-07-01  2:05 ` Yafang Shao
2023-07-05 20:37   ` Andrii Nakryiko
2023-07-06  1:26     ` Yafang Shao
2023-07-06 20:34       ` Andrii Nakryiko
2023-07-07  1:42         ` Yafang Shao

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