Go to file
Alexey Budankov 9807372822 capabilities: Introduce CAP_PERFMON to kernel and user space
Introduce the CAP_PERFMON capability designed to secure system
performance monitoring and observability operations so that CAP_PERFMON
can assist CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability in its governing role for
performance monitoring and observability subsystems.

CAP_PERFMON hardens system security and integrity during performance
monitoring and observability operations by decreasing attack surface that
is available to a CAP_SYS_ADMIN privileged process [2]. Providing the access
to system performance monitoring and observability operations under CAP_PERFMON
capability singly, without the rest of CAP_SYS_ADMIN credentials, excludes
chances to misuse the credentials and makes the operation more secure.

Thus, CAP_PERFMON implements the principle of least privilege for
performance monitoring and observability operations (POSIX IEEE 1003.1e:
2.2.2.39 principle of least privilege: A security design principle that
  states that a process or program be granted only those privileges
(e.g., capabilities) necessary to accomplish its legitimate function,
and only for the time that such privileges are actually required)

CAP_PERFMON meets the demand to secure system performance monitoring and
observability operations for adoption in security sensitive, restricted,
multiuser production environments (e.g. HPC clusters, cloud and virtual compute
environments), where root or CAP_SYS_ADMIN credentials are not available to
mass users of a system, and securely unblocks applicability and scalability
of system performance monitoring and observability operations beyond root
and CAP_SYS_ADMIN use cases.

CAP_PERFMON takes over CAP_SYS_ADMIN credentials related to system performance
monitoring and observability operations and balances amount of CAP_SYS_ADMIN
credentials following the recommendations in the capabilities man page [1]
for CAP_SYS_ADMIN: "Note: this capability is overloaded; see Notes to kernel
developers, below." For backward compatibility reasons access to system
performance monitoring and observability subsystems of the kernel remains
open for CAP_SYS_ADMIN privileged processes but CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability
usage for secure system performance monitoring and observability operations
is discouraged with respect to the designed CAP_PERFMON capability.

Although the software running under CAP_PERFMON can not ensure avoidance
of related hardware issues, the software can still mitigate these issues
following the official hardware issues mitigation procedure [2]. The bugs
in the software itself can be fixed following the standard kernel development
process [3] to maintain and harden security of system performance monitoring
and observability operations.

[1] http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/capabilities.7.html
[2] https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/embargoed-hardware-issues.html
[3] https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/security-bugs.html

Signed-off-by: Alexey Budankov <alexey.budankov@linux.intel.com>
Acked-by: James Morris <jamorris@linux.microsoft.com>
Acked-by: Serge E. Hallyn <serge@hallyn.com>
Acked-by: Song Liu <songliubraving@fb.com>
Acked-by: Stephen Smalley <sds@tycho.nsa.gov>
Tested-by: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com>
Cc: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
Cc: Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Igor Lubashev <ilubashe@akamai.com>
Cc: Jiri Olsa <jolsa@redhat.com>
Cc: Namhyung Kim <namhyung@kernel.org>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Stephane Eranian <eranian@google.com>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: intel-gfx@lists.freedesktop.org
Cc: linux-doc@vger.kernel.org
Cc: linux-man@vger.kernel.org
Cc: linux-security-module@vger.kernel.org
Cc: selinux@vger.kernel.org
Link: http://lore.kernel.org/lkml/5590d543-82c6-490a-6544-08e6a5517db0@linux.intel.com
Signed-off-by: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com>
2020-04-16 12:19:06 -03:00
arch Misc EFI fixes, including the boot failure regression caused by the BSS section not being cleared. 2020-04-15 17:37:48 -07:00
block block-5.7-2020-04-10 2020-04-10 10:06:54 -07:00
certs .gitignore: add SPDX License Identifier 2020-03-25 11:50:48 +01:00
crypto x86: update AS_* macros to binutils >=2.23, supporting ADX and AVX2 2020-04-09 00:12:48 +09:00
Documentation Documentation/x86, efi/x86: Clarify EFI handover protocol and its requirements 2020-04-14 08:32:15 +02:00
drivers Misc EFI fixes, including the boot failure regression caused by the BSS section not being cleared. 2020-04-15 17:37:48 -07:00
fs for-5.7-rc1-tag 2020-04-14 11:51:30 -07:00
include capabilities: Introduce CAP_PERFMON to kernel and user space 2020-04-16 12:19:06 -03:00
init Kbuild updates for v5.7 (2nd) 2020-04-11 09:46:12 -07:00
ipc ipc/util.c: sysvipc_find_ipc() should increase position index 2020-04-10 15:36:22 -07:00
kernel Time(keeping) updates: 2020-04-12 10:13:14 -07:00
lib Kbuild updates for v5.7 (2nd) 2020-04-11 09:46:12 -07:00
LICENSES
mm Merge branch 'akpm' (patches from Andrew) 2020-04-10 17:57:48 -07:00
net Kbuild updates for v5.7 (2nd) 2020-04-11 09:46:12 -07:00
samples samples/hw_breakpoint: drop use of kallsyms_lookup_name() 2020-04-07 10:43:44 -07:00
scripts kbuild: add dummy toolchains to enable all cc-option etc. in Kconfig 2020-04-09 00:13:45 +09:00
security capabilities: Introduce CAP_PERFMON to kernel and user space 2020-04-16 12:19:06 -03:00
sound sound fixes for 5.7-rc1 2020-04-10 12:27:06 -07:00
tools perf annotate: Add basic support for bpf_image 2020-04-16 12:19:06 -03:00
usr kbuild: fix comment about missing include guard detection 2020-04-11 12:09:48 +09:00
virt KVM: Pass kvm_init()'s opaque param to additional arch funcs 2020-03-31 10:48:03 -04:00
.clang-format clang-format: Update with the latest for_each macro list 2020-03-06 21:50:05 +01:00
.cocciconfig
.get_maintainer.ignore
.gitattributes
.gitignore .gitignore: add SPDX License Identifier 2020-03-25 11:50:48 +01:00
.mailmap mailmap: Add Sedat Dilek (replacement for expired email address) 2020-04-11 09:28:34 -07:00
COPYING COPYING: state that all contributions really are covered by this file 2020-02-10 13:32:20 -08:00
CREDITS MAINTAINERS: Hand MIPS over to Thomas 2020-02-24 22:43:18 -08:00
Kbuild kbuild: rename hostprogs-y/always to hostprogs/always-y 2020-02-04 01:53:07 +09:00
Kconfig
MAINTAINERS MAINTAINERS: sort field names for all entries 2020-04-12 11:04:58 -07:00
Makefile Linux 5.7-rc1 2020-04-12 12:35:55 -07:00
README

Linux kernel
============

There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.  The formatted documentation can also be read online at:

    https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.