Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] Documentation/admin-guide: introduce perf-security.rst file

Jonathan Corbet
2018-11-26T20:28:37Z

On Mon, 26 Nov 2018 11:57:21 +0300
Alexey Budankov <alexey.budankov@linux.intel.com> wrote:

> >> +For the purpose of performing security checks Linux implementation splits
> >> +processes into two categories [6]_ : a) privileged processes (whose effective
> >> +user ID is 0, referred to as superuser or root), and b) unprivileged processes
> >> +(whose effective UID is nonzero).
> >
> > Is that really what's going on here? If I understand things correctly,
> > it's looking for CAP_SYS_PTRACE rather than a specific UID; am I missing
> > something here?
>
> You are right regarding CAP_SYS_PTRACE but this capability is not the only
> one which is used by perf_events for security checks, so the capabilities
> clarification is kept aside of these patches, because patches initial intention
> is to clarify security specifics of sysctl_perf_even_paranoid settings.
>
> I agree that the document can be extended with details clarifying capabilities
> used by perf_events for security checks.

I don't really like the idea of adding a document that we know doesn't
really describe how the security decision is made. Even a one-line
parenthetical saying that things are more complicated and giving a pointer
to a place to look for details would help, IMO.

Either way, I can merge this, but I'd like to have an ack from the perf
folks first.

Thanks,

jon