kernel-ark/Documentation/cgroups/devices.txt
Aristeu Rozanski bd2953ebbb devcg: propagate local changes down the hierarchy
This patch makes exception changes to propagate down in hierarchy respecting
when possible local exceptions.

New exceptions allowing additional access to devices won't be propagated, but
it'll be possible to add an exception to access all of part of the newly
allowed device(s).

New exceptions disallowing access to devices will be propagated down and the
local group's exceptions will be revalidated for the new situation.
Example:
      A
     / \
        B

    group        behavior          exceptions
    A            allow             "b 8:* rwm", "c 116:1 rw"
    B            deny              "c 1:3 rwm", "c 116:2 rwm", "b 3:* rwm"

If a new exception is added to group A:
	# echo "c 116:* r" > A/devices.deny
it'll propagate down and after revalidating B's local exceptions, the exception
"c 116:2 rwm" will be removed.

In case parent's exceptions change and local exceptions are not allowed anymore,
they'll be deleted.

v7:
- do not allow behavior change when the cgroup has children
- update documentation

v6: fixed issues pointed by Serge Hallyn
- only copy parent's exceptions while propagating behavior if the local
  behavior is different
- while propagating exceptions, do not clear and copy parent's: it'd be against
  the premise we don't propagate access to more devices

v5: fixed issues pointed by Serge Hallyn
- updated documentation
- not propagating when an exception is written to devices.allow
- when propagating a new behavior, clean the local exceptions list if they're
  for a different behavior

v4: fixed issues pointed by Tejun Heo
- separated function to walk the tree and collect valid propagation targets

v3: fixed issues pointed by Tejun Heo
- update documentation
- move css_online/css_offline changes to a new patch
- use cgroup_for_each_descendant_pre() instead of own descendant walk
- move exception_copy rework to a separared patch
- move exception_clean rework to a separated patch

v2: fixed issues pointed by Tejun Heo
- instead of keeping the local settings that won't apply anymore, remove them

Cc: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Cc: Serge Hallyn <serge.hallyn@canonical.com>
Signed-off-by: Aristeu Rozanski <aris@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
2013-03-20 07:50:21 -07:00

117 lines
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Device Whitelist Controller
1. Description:
Implement a cgroup to track and enforce open and mknod restrictions
on device files. A device cgroup associates a device access
whitelist with each cgroup. A whitelist entry has 4 fields.
'type' is a (all), c (char), or b (block). 'all' means it applies
to all types and all major and minor numbers. Major and minor are
either an integer or * for all. Access is a composition of r
(read), w (write), and m (mknod).
The root device cgroup starts with rwm to 'all'. A child device
cgroup gets a copy of the parent. Administrators can then remove
devices from the whitelist or add new entries. A child cgroup can
never receive a device access which is denied by its parent.
2. User Interface
An entry is added using devices.allow, and removed using
devices.deny. For instance
echo 'c 1:3 mr' > /sys/fs/cgroup/1/devices.allow
allows cgroup 1 to read and mknod the device usually known as
/dev/null. Doing
echo a > /sys/fs/cgroup/1/devices.deny
will remove the default 'a *:* rwm' entry. Doing
echo a > /sys/fs/cgroup/1/devices.allow
will add the 'a *:* rwm' entry to the whitelist.
3. Security
Any task can move itself between cgroups. This clearly won't
suffice, but we can decide the best way to adequately restrict
movement as people get some experience with this. We may just want
to require CAP_SYS_ADMIN, which at least is a separate bit from
CAP_MKNOD. We may want to just refuse moving to a cgroup which
isn't a descendant of the current one. Or we may want to use
CAP_MAC_ADMIN, since we really are trying to lock down root.
CAP_SYS_ADMIN is needed to modify the whitelist or move another
task to a new cgroup. (Again we'll probably want to change that).
A cgroup may not be granted more permissions than the cgroup's
parent has.
4. Hierarchy
device cgroups maintain hierarchy by making sure a cgroup never has more
access permissions than its parent. Every time an entry is written to
a cgroup's devices.deny file, all its children will have that entry removed
from their whitelist and all the locally set whitelist entries will be
re-evaluated. In case one of the locally set whitelist entries would provide
more access than the cgroup's parent, it'll be removed from the whitelist.
Example:
A
/ \
B
group behavior exceptions
A allow "b 8:* rwm", "c 116:1 rw"
B deny "c 1:3 rwm", "c 116:2 rwm", "b 3:* rwm"
If a device is denied in group A:
# echo "c 116:* r" > A/devices.deny
it'll propagate down and after revalidating B's entries, the whitelist entry
"c 116:2 rwm" will be removed:
group whitelist entries denied devices
A all "b 8:* rwm", "c 116:* rw"
B "c 1:3 rwm", "b 3:* rwm" all the rest
In case parent's exceptions change and local exceptions are not allowed
anymore, they'll be deleted.
Notice that new whitelist entries will not be propagated:
A
/ \
B
group whitelist entries denied devices
A "c 1:3 rwm", "c 1:5 r" all the rest
B "c 1:3 rwm", "c 1:5 r" all the rest
when adding "c *:3 rwm":
# echo "c *:3 rwm" >A/devices.allow
the result:
group whitelist entries denied devices
A "c *:3 rwm", "c 1:5 r" all the rest
B "c 1:3 rwm", "c 1:5 r" all the rest
but now it'll be possible to add new entries to B:
# echo "c 2:3 rwm" >B/devices.allow
# echo "c 50:3 r" >B/devices.allow
or even
# echo "c *:3 rwm" >B/devices.allow
Allowing or denying all by writing 'a' to devices.allow or devices.deny will
not be possible once the device cgroups has children.
4.1 Hierarchy (internal implementation)
device cgroups is implemented internally using a behavior (ALLOW, DENY) and a
list of exceptions. The internal state is controlled using the same user
interface to preserve compatibility with the previous whitelist-only
implementation. Removal or addition of exceptions that will reduce the access
to devices will be propagated down the hierarchy.
For every propagated exception, the effective rules will be re-evaluated based
on current parent's access rules.