Re: [PATCH RFC] mm: add MAP_EXCLUSIVE to create exclusive user mappings

Mike Rapoport
2019-10-30T08:15:40Z

On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 12:02:34PM +0100, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> On 27.10.19 11:17, Mike Rapoport wrote:
> >From: Mike Rapoport <rppt@linux.ibm.com>
> >
> >The mappings created with MAP_EXCLUSIVE are visible only in the context of
> >the owning process and can be used by applications to store secret
> >information that will not be visible not only to other processes but to the
> >kernel as well.
> >
> >The pages in these mappings are removed from the kernel direct map and
> >marked with PG_user_exclusive flag. When the exclusive area is unmapped,
> >the pages are mapped back into the direct map.
> >
>
> Just a thought, the kernel is still able to indirectly read the contents of
> these pages by doing a kdump from kexec environment, right?

Right.

> Also, I wonder
> what would happen if you map such pages via /dev/mem into another user space
> application and e.g., use them along with kvm [1].

Do you mean that one application creates MAP_EXCLUSIVE and another
applications accesses the same physical pages via /dev/mem?

With /dev/mem all physical memory is visible...

> [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/778240/
>
> --
>
> Thanks,
>
> David / dhildenb
>

--
Sincerely yours,
Mike.