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>

1 files changed, 39 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
index 0ec91f0..12fee13 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.