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authorVasiliy Kulikov <segooon@gmail.com>2012-01-10 15:11:31 -0800
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2012-01-10 16:30:54 -0800
commit0499680a42141d86417a8fbaa8c8db806bea1201 (patch)
treeeb2aeb559bf5418476319aa81fa4f6ed3659bbc0 /Documentation/filesystems
parent97412950b10e64f347aec4a9b759395c2465adf6 (diff)
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procfs: add hidepid= and gid= mount options
Add support for mount options to restrict access to /proc/PID/ directories. The default backward-compatible "relaxed" behaviour is left untouched. The first mount option is called "hidepid" and its value defines how much info about processes we want to be available for non-owners: hidepid=0 (default) means the old behavior - anybody may read all world-readable /proc/PID/* files. hidepid=1 means users may not access any /proc/<pid>/ directories, but their own. Sensitive files like cmdline, sched*, status are now protected against other users. As permission checking done in proc_pid_permission() and files' permissions are left untouched, programs expecting specific files' modes are not confused. hidepid=2 means hidepid=1 plus all /proc/PID/ will be invisible to other users. It doesn't mean that it hides whether a process exists (it can be learned by other means, e.g. by kill -0 $PID), but it hides process' euid and egid. It compicates intruder's task of gathering info about running processes, whether some daemon runs with elevated privileges, whether another user runs some sensitive program, whether other users run any program at all, etc. gid=XXX defines a group that will be able to gather all processes' info (as in hidepid=0 mode). This group should be used instead of putting nonroot user in sudoers file or something. However, untrusted users (like daemons, etc.) which are not supposed to monitor the tasks in the whole system should not be added to the group. hidepid=1 or higher is designed to restrict access to procfs files, which might reveal some sensitive private information like precise keystrokes timings: http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/11/05/3 hidepid=1/2 doesn't break monitoring userspace tools. ps, top, pgrep, and conky gracefully handle EPERM/ENOENT and behave as if the current user is the only user running processes. pstree shows the process subtree which contains "pstree" process. Note: the patch doesn't deal with setuid/setgid issues of keeping preopened descriptors of procfs files (like https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/2/7/368). We rely on that the leaked information like the scheduling counters of setuid apps doesn't threaten anybody's privacy - only the user started the setuid program may read the counters. Signed-off-by: Vasiliy Kulikov <segoon@openwall.com> Cc: Alexey Dobriyan <adobriyan@gmail.com> Cc: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk> Cc: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@xenotime.net> Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com> Cc: Greg KH <greg@kroah.com> Cc: Theodore Tso <tytso@MIT.EDU> Cc: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> Cc: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org> Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com> Cc: Hugh Dickins <hughd@google.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/filesystems')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt39
1 files changed, 39 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
index 0ec91f03422e..12fee132fbe2 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
@@ -41,6 +41,8 @@ Table of Contents
3.5 /proc/<pid>/mountinfo - Information about mounts
3.6 /proc/<pid>/comm & /proc/<pid>/task/<tid>/comm
+ 4 Configuring procfs
+ 4.1 Mount options
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Preface
@@ -1542,3 +1544,40 @@ a task to set its own or one of its thread siblings comm value. The comm value
is limited in size compared to the cmdline value, so writing anything longer
then the kernel's TASK_COMM_LEN (currently 16 chars) will result in a truncated
comm value.
+
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Configuring procfs
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+4.1 Mount options
+---------------------
+
+The following mount options are supported:
+
+ hidepid= Set /proc/<pid>/ access mode.
+ gid= Set the group authorized to learn processes information.
+
+hidepid=0 means classic mode - everybody may access all /proc/<pid>/ directories
+(default).
+
+hidepid=1 means users may not access any /proc/<pid>/ directories but their
+own. Sensitive files like cmdline, sched*, status are now protected against
+other users. This makes it impossible to learn whether any user runs
+specific program (given the program doesn't reveal itself by its behaviour).
+As an additional bonus, as /proc/<pid>/cmdline is unaccessible for other users,
+poorly written programs passing sensitive information via program arguments are
+now protected against local eavesdroppers.
+
+hidepid=2 means hidepid=1 plus all /proc/<pid>/ will be fully invisible to other
+users. It doesn't mean that it hides a fact whether a process with a specific
+pid value exists (it can be learned by other means, e.g. by "kill -0 $PID"),
+but it hides process' uid and gid, which may be learned by stat()'ing
+/proc/<pid>/ otherwise. It greatly complicates an intruder's task of gathering
+information about running processes, whether some daemon runs with elevated
+privileges, whether other user runs some sensitive program, whether other users
+run any program at all, etc.
+
+gid= defines a group authorized to learn processes information otherwise
+prohibited by hidepid=. If you use some daemon like identd which needs to learn
+information about processes information, just add identd to this group.