summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/Documentation/cgroups/devices.txt
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/cgroups/devices.txt')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/cgroups/devices.txt116
1 files changed, 116 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/cgroups/devices.txt b/Documentation/cgroups/devices.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..3c1095ca0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/cgroups/devices.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,116 @@
+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.