From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "H. Peter Anvin" Subject: Re: [PATCH] x86: Lock down MSR writing in secure boot Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2013 22:33:32 -0800 Message-ID: <511B33BC.9080307@zytor.com> References: <1360355671.18083.18.camel@x230.lan> <51157C9C.6030501@zytor.com> <20130208230655.GB28990@pd.tnic> <1360366012.18083.21.camel@x230.lan> <5115A4CC.3080102@zytor.com> <1360373383.18083.23.camel@x230.lan> <20130209092925.GA17728@pd.tnic> <1360422712.18083.24.camel@x230.lan> <511AE2CC.5040705@zytor.com> <1360733962.18083.30.camel@x230.lan> <511B2EB9.5070406@zytor.com> <1360736860.18083.33.camel@x230.lan> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <1360736860.18083.33.camel@x230.lan> Sender: linux-security-module-owner@vger.kernel.org To: Matthew Garrett Cc: Borislav Petkov , Kees Cook , LKML , Thomas Gleixner , Ingo Molnar , "x86@kernel.org" , "linux-efi@vger.kernel.org" , linux-security-module List-Id: linux-efi@vger.kernel.org On 02/12/2013 10:27 PM, Matthew Garrett wrote: > On Tue, 2013-02-12 at 22:12 -0800, H. Peter Anvin wrote: > >> Sounds like you are thinking of CAP_SYS_ADMIN, but I don't really see a >> huge difference between MSRs and I/O control registers... just different >> address spaces. > > Not having CAP_SYS_RAWIO blocks various SCSI commands, for instance. > These might result in the ability to write individual blocks or destroy > the device firmware, but do any of them permit modifying the running > kernel? That is just batshit crazy. If you have CAP_SYS_RAWIO you can do iopl() which means you can reprogram your northbridge, at which point you most definitely *can* modify the running kernel. And some SCSI driver requires this??! -hpa -- H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center I work for Intel. I don't speak on their behalf.