Re: [PATCH v3 1/3] ptrace: Provide ___ptrace_may_access() that can be applied on arbitrary tasks

Jiri Kosina
2018-09-04T17:35:34Z

On Tue, 4 Sep 2018, Tim Chen wrote:

> > Current ptrace_may_access() implementation assumes that the 'source' task is
> > always the caller (current).
> >
> > Expose ___ptrace_may_access() that can be used to apply the check on arbitrary
> > tasks.
>
> Casey recently has proposed putting the decision making of whether to
> do IBPB in the security module.
>
> https://lwn.net/ml/kernel-hardening/20180815235355.14908-4-casey.schaufler@intel.com/
>
> That will have the advantage of giving the administrator a more flexibility
> of when to turn on IBPB. The policy is very similar to what you have proposed here
> but I think the security module is a more appropriate place for the security policy.

Yeah, well, honestly, I have a bit hard time buying the "generic
sidechannel prevention security module" idea, given how completely
different in nature all the mitigations have been so far. I don't see that
trying to abstract this somehow provides more clarity.

So if this should be done in LSM, it'd probably have to be written by
someone else than me :) who actually understands how the "sidechannel LSM"
idea works.

Thanks,

--
Jiri Kosina
SUSE Labs