Split BPF operations that are allowed under CAP_SYS_ADMIN into
combination of CAP_BPF, CAP_PERFMON, CAP_NET_ADMIN.
For backward compatibility include them in CAP_SYS_ADMIN as well.
The end result provides simple safety model for applications that use BPF:
- to load tracing program types
BPF_PROG_TYPE_{KPROBE, TRACEPOINT, PERF_EVENT, RAW_TRACEPOINT, etc}
use CAP_BPF and CAP_PERFMON
- to load networking program types
BPF_PROG_TYPE_{SCHED_CLS, XDP, SK_SKB, etc}
use CAP_BPF and CAP_NET_ADMIN
There are few exceptions from this rule:
- bpf_trace_printk() is allowed in networking programs, but it's using
tracing mechanism, hence this helper needs additional CAP_PERFMON
if networking program is using this helper.
- BPF_F_ZERO_SEED flag for hash/lru map is allowed under CAP_SYS_ADMIN only
to discourage production use.
- BPF HW offload is allowed under CAP_SYS_ADMIN.
- bpf_probe_write_user() is allowed under CAP_SYS_ADMIN only.
CAPs are not checked at attach/detach time with two exceptions:
- loading BPF_PROG_TYPE_CGROUP_SKB is allowed for unprivileged users,
hence CAP_NET_ADMIN is required at attach time.
- flow_dissector detach doesn't check prog FD at detach,
hence CAP_NET_ADMIN is required at detach time.
CAP_SYS_ADMIN is required to iterate BPF objects (progs, maps, links) via get_next_id
command and convert them to file descriptor via GET_FD_BY_ID command.
This restriction guarantees that mutliple tasks with CAP_BPF are not able to
affect each other. That leads to clean isolation of tasks. For example:
task A with CAP_BPF and CAP_NET_ADMIN loads and attaches a firewall via bpf_link.
task B with the same capabilities cannot detach that firewall unless
task A explicitly passed link FD to task B via scm_rights or bpffs.
CAP_SYS_ADMIN can still detach/unload everything.
Two networking user apps with CAP_SYS_ADMIN and CAP_NET_ADMIN can
accidentely mess with each other programs and maps.
Two networking user apps with CAP_NET_ADMIN and CAP_BPF cannot affect each other.
CAP_NET_ADMIN + CAP_BPF allows networking programs access only packet data.
Such networking progs cannot access arbitrary kernel memory or leak pointers.
bpftool, bpftrace, bcc tools binaries should NOT be installed with
CAP_BPF and CAP_PERFMON, since unpriv users will be able to read kernel secrets.
But users with these two permissions will be able to use these tracing tools.
CAP_PERFMON is least secure, since it allows kprobes and kernel memory access.
CAP_NET_ADMIN can stop network traffic via iproute2.
CAP_BPF is the safest from security point of view and harmless on its own.
Having CAP_BPF and/or CAP_NET_ADMIN is not enough to write into arbitrary map
and if that map is used by firewall-like bpf prog.
CAP_BPF allows many bpf prog_load commands in parallel. The verifier
may consume large amount of memory and significantly slow down the system.
Existing unprivileged BPF operations are not affected.
In particular unprivileged users are allowed to load socket_filter and cg_skb
program types and to create array, hash, prog_array, map-in-map map types.
Change-Id: I0c22a92279221b8bc3f83bf259d433eab01044df
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Daniel Borkmann <daniel@iogearbox.net>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/20200513230355.7858-2-alexei.starovoitov@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Sorayukii <sorayukii69@gmail.com>
Alexei Starovoitovauthored and Sorayukiicommited 2026-05-15 17:59:27 +07:00
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
Change-Id: I7f21bf978186db284d87b61a91061fdd8385b292
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>
Signed-off-by: Sorayukii <sorayukii69@gmail.com>
Alexey Budankovauthored and Sorayukiicommited 2026-05-15 17:59:27 +07:00
[ Upstream commit 46653972e3ea64f79e7f8ae3aa41a4d3fdb70a13 ]
Shifting signed 32-bit value by 31 bits is undefined, so changing
significant bit to unsigned. The UBSAN warning calltrace like below:
UBSAN: shift-out-of-bounds in security/commoncap.c:1252:2
left shift of 1 by 31 places cannot be represented in type 'int'
Call Trace:
<TASK>
dump_stack_lvl+0x7d/0xa5
dump_stack+0x15/0x1b
ubsan_epilogue+0xe/0x4e
__ubsan_handle_shift_out_of_bounds+0x1e7/0x20c
cap_task_prctl+0x561/0x6f0
security_task_prctl+0x5a/0xb0
__x64_sys_prctl+0x61/0x8f0
do_syscall_64+0x58/0x80
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd
</TASK>
Fixes: e338d263a7 ("Add 64-bit capability support to the kernel")
Signed-off-by: Gaosheng Cui <cuigaosheng1@huawei.com>
Acked-by: Andrew G. Morgan <morgan@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Serge Hallyn <serge@hallyn.com>
Signed-off-by: Paul Moore <paul@paul-moore.com>
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
Gaosheng Cuiauthored and Greg Kroah-Hartmancommited 2022-11-25 17:35:35 +01:00
Register a netlink per-protocol bind fuction for audit to check userspace
process capabilities before allowing a multicast group connection.
Signed-off-by: Richard Guy Briggs <rgb@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
Richard Guy Briggsauthored and David S. Millercommited 2014-04-22 21:42:27 -04:00
Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Acked-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Acked-by: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Acked-by: Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com>
Alexei Starovoitov
authored and
Sorayukii
commited 
Alexey Budankov
authored and
Gaosheng Cui
authored and
Greg Kroah-Hartman
commited 
Alexey Dobriyan
authored and
Linus Torvalds
commited 
Richard Guy Briggs
authored and
David S. Miller
commited 
Eric Paris
commited 
David Howells
commited