Re: [PATCH v2 1/1] mm/madvise: replace ptrace attach requirement for process_madvise

[Michal Hocko]

On Tue 12-01-21 10:12:03, Suren Baghdasaryan wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 11:46 PM Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon 11-01-21 09:06:22, Suren Baghdasaryan wrote:
> > > process_madvise currently requires ptrace attach capability.
> > > PTRACE_MODE_ATTACH gives one process complete control over another
> > > process. It effectively removes the security boundary between the
> > > two processes (in one direction). Granting ptrace attach capability
> > > even to a system process is considered dangerous since it creates an
> > > attack surface. This severely limits the usage of this API.
> > > The operations process_madvise can perform do not affect the correctness
> > > of the operation of the target process; they only affect where the data
> > > is physically located (and therefore, how fast it can be accessed).
> >
> > Yes it doesn't influence the correctness but it is still a very
> > sensitive operation because it can allow a targeted side channel timing
> > attacks so we should be really careful.
> 
> Sorry, I missed this comment in my answer. Possibility of affecting
> the target's performance including side channel attack is why we
> require CAP_SYS_NICE.

OK. It would be really good to document that in the man page. From the
current wording it seems we already rely on this cap for migration on a
remote process which is not the same thing but it roughly falls into the
similar category.
-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs