Linux Security Modules development
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Justin Suess <utilityemal77@gmail.com>
To: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>,
	Paul Moore <paul@paul-moore.com>,
	Xiu Jianfeng <xiujianfeng@huawei.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	linux-security-module@vger.kernel.org, bpf@vger.kernel.org,
	Justin Suess <utilityemal77@gmail.com>
Subject: [PATCH bpf-next 0/2] lsm: give BPF programs a way to query locked_down state
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2026 07:20:39 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260815112041.1248855-1-utilityemal77@gmail.com> (raw)

Howdy,

BPF programs can attach to the locked_down LSM hook and contribute a
verdict, but they have never been able to ask the locked_down question
themselves: there is no way for a program to invoke the hook and learn
whether a given operation is locked down. (i.e be a caller of
security_locked_down rather than a consumer).

Today the state has to be fed in out of band, for example userspace
reading /sys/kernel/security/lockdown and writing the result into a
map. That is a time-of-check/time-of-use race: a security_locked_down
verdict can be raised at runtime, so the cached answer can be stale
by the time the program acts on it.

Add a bpf_security_locked_down() kfunc that calls
security_locked_down() and returns its verdict, letting LSM and
syscall programs query locked_down state at decision time. Out-of-range
reasons are rejected with -EINVAL before dispatching the hook, and the
kfunc is refused to programs attached to the locked_down hook itself,
which would recurse into the dispatch. (how the obvious recursion issue
is addressed).

As this is the first pure-lsm-hook kfunc, add a new file security/lsm_kfuncs.c
to host it.

This kfunc has no reliance on / relation to the Lockdown LSM, despite the
similar naming. It is an LSM-agnostic caller of security_locked_down, and
Lockdown just happens to be the only in-tree subscriber to this hook at the
moment.

In fact, the test environment does not rely on CONFIG_SECURITY_LOCKDOWN at
all, and uses a BPF implementation of security_locked_down.

This kfunc can cause notices to be printed with kmsg if the Lockdown LSM is
enabled due to this line in security/lockdown/lockdown.c:

  pr_notice_ratelimited("Lockdown: %s: %s is restricted; see man kernel_lockdown.7\n",
				                 current->comm, lockdown_reasons[what]);

Patch 1 adds the kfunc, patch 2 the selftests. This is based on bpf-next/master, but
applies cleanly to the lsm tree.

Justin

Justin Suess (2):
  lsm: add bpf_security_locked_down() kfunc
  selftests/bpf: Test bpf_security_locked_down kfunc

 security/Makefile                             |  1 +
 security/lsm_kfuncs.c                         | 84 +++++++++++++++++++
 .../selftests/bpf/prog_tests/lsm_kfuncs.c     | 28 +++++++
 .../testing/selftests/bpf/progs/lsm_kfuncs.c  | 34 ++++++++
 .../selftests/bpf/progs/lsm_kfuncs_fail.c     | 26 ++++++
 5 files changed, 173 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 security/lsm_kfuncs.c
 create mode 100644 tools/testing/selftests/bpf/prog_tests/lsm_kfuncs.c
 create mode 100644 tools/testing/selftests/bpf/progs/lsm_kfuncs.c
 create mode 100644 tools/testing/selftests/bpf/progs/lsm_kfuncs_fail.c


base-commit: d82ebfc685c91e7f5623a8be949da1ddb767420b
-- 
2.54.0


             reply	other threads:[~2026-08-15 11:20 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 5+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-08-15 11:20 Justin Suess [this message]
2026-08-15 11:20 ` [PATCH bpf-next 1/2] lsm: add bpf_security_locked_down() kfunc Justin Suess
2026-08-15 12:19   ` bot+bpf-ci
2026-08-15 11:20 ` [PATCH bpf-next 2/2] selftests/bpf: Test bpf_security_locked_down kfunc Justin Suess
2026-08-15 12:19   ` bot+bpf-ci

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=20260815112041.1248855-1-utilityemal77@gmail.com \
    --to=utilityemal77@gmail.com \
    --cc=ast@kernel.org \
    --cc=bpf@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=linux-security-module@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=paul@paul-moore.com \
    --cc=xiujianfeng@huawei.com \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox