--- /dev/null
+ SECure COMPuting with filters
+ =============================
+
+Introduction
+------------
+
+A large number of system calls are exposed to every userland process
+with many of them going unused for the entire lifetime of the process.
+As system calls change and mature, bugs are found and eradicated. A
+certain subset of userland applications benefit by having a reduced set
+of available system calls. The resulting set reduces the total kernel
+surface exposed to the application. System call filtering is meant for
+use with those applications.
+
+Seccomp filtering provides a means for a process to specify a filter for
+incoming system calls. The filter is expressed as a Berkeley Packet
+Filter (BPF) program, as with socket filters, except that the data
+operated on is related to the system call being made: system call
+number and the system call arguments. This allows for expressive
+filtering of system calls using a filter program language with a long
+history of being exposed to userland and a straightforward data set.
+
+Additionally, BPF makes it impossible for users of seccomp to fall prey
+to time-of-check-time-of-use (TOCTOU) attacks that are common in system
+call interposition frameworks. BPF programs may not dereference
+pointers which constrains all filters to solely evaluating the system
+call arguments directly.
+
+What it isn't
+-------------
+
+System call filtering isn't a sandbox. It provides a clearly defined
+mechanism for minimizing the exposed kernel surface. It is meant to be
+a tool for sandbox developers to use. Beyond that, policy for logical
+behavior and information flow should be managed with a combination of
+other system hardening techniques and, potentially, an LSM of your
+choosing. Expressive, dynamic filters provide further options down this
+path (avoiding pathological sizes or selecting which of the multiplexed
+system calls in socketcall() is allowed, for instance) which could be
+construed, incorrectly, as a more complete sandboxing solution.
+
+Usage
+-----
+
+An additional seccomp mode is added and is enabled using the same
+prctl(2) call as the strict seccomp. If the architecture has
+CONFIG_HAVE_ARCH_SECCOMP_FILTER, then filters may be added as below:
+
+PR_SET_SECCOMP:
+ Now takes an additional argument which specifies a new filter
+ using a BPF program.
+ The BPF program will be executed over struct seccomp_data
+ reflecting the system call number, arguments, and other
+ metadata. The BPF program must then return one of the
+ acceptable values to inform the kernel which action should be
+ taken.
+
+ Usage:
+ prctl(PR_SET_SECCOMP, SECCOMP_MODE_FILTER, prog);
+
+ The 'prog' argument is a pointer to a struct sock_fprog which
+ will contain the filter program. If the program is invalid, the
+ call will return -1 and set errno to EINVAL.
+
+ If fork/clone and execve are allowed by @prog, any child
+ processes will be constrained to the same filters and system
+ call ABI as the parent.
+
+ Prior to use, the task must call prctl(PR_SET_NO_NEW_PRIVS, 1) or
+ run with CAP_SYS_ADMIN privileges in its namespace. If these are not
+ true, -EACCES will be returned. This requirement ensures that filter
+ programs cannot be applied to child processes with greater privileges
+ than the task that installed them.
+
+ Additionally, if prctl(2) is allowed by the attached filter,
+ additional filters may be layered on which will increase evaluation
+ time, but allow for further decreasing the attack surface during
+ execution of a process.
+
+The above call returns 0 on success and non-zero on error.
+
+Return values
+-------------
+A seccomp filter may return any of the following values. If multiple
+filters exist, the return value for the evaluation of a given system
+call will always use the highest precedent value. (For example,
+SECCOMP_RET_KILL will always take precedence.)
+
+In precedence order, they are:
+
+SECCOMP_RET_KILL:
+ Results in the task exiting immediately without executing the
+ system call. The exit status of the task (status & 0x7f) will
+ be SIGSYS, not SIGKILL.
+
+SECCOMP_RET_TRAP:
+ Results in the kernel sending a SIGSYS signal to the triggering
+ task without executing the system call. The kernel will
+ rollback the register state to just before the system call
+ entry such that a signal handler in the task will be able to
+ inspect the ucontext_t->uc_mcontext registers and emulate
+ system call success or failure upon return from the signal
+ handler.
+
+ The SECCOMP_RET_DATA portion of the return value will be passed
+ as si_errno.
+
+ SIGSYS triggered by seccomp will have a si_code of SYS_SECCOMP.
+
+SECCOMP_RET_ERRNO:
+ Results in the lower 16-bits of the return value being passed
+ to userland as the errno without executing the system call.
+
+SECCOMP_RET_TRACE:
+ When returned, this value will cause the kernel to attempt to
+ notify a ptrace()-based tracer prior to executing the system
+ call. If there is no tracer present, -ENOSYS is returned to
+ userland and the system call is not executed.
+
+ A tracer will be notified if it requests PTRACE_O_TRACESECCOMP
+ using ptrace(PTRACE_SETOPTIONS). The tracer will be notified
+ of a PTRACE_EVENT_SECCOMP and the SECCOMP_RET_DATA portion of
+ the BPF program return value will be available to the tracer
+ via PTRACE_GETEVENTMSG.
+
+SECCOMP_RET_ALLOW:
+ Results in the system call being executed.
+
+If multiple filters exist, the return value for the evaluation of a
+given system call will always use the highest precedent value.
+
+Precedence is only determined using the SECCOMP_RET_ACTION mask. When
+multiple filters return values of the same precedence, only the
+SECCOMP_RET_DATA from the most recently installed filter will be
+returned.
+
+Pitfalls
+--------
+
+The biggest pitfall to avoid during use is filtering on system call
+number without checking the architecture value. Why? On any
+architecture that supports multiple system call invocation conventions,
+the system call numbers may vary based on the specific invocation. If
+the numbers in the different calling conventions overlap, then checks in
+the filters may be abused. Always check the arch value!
+
+Example
+-------
+
+The samples/seccomp/ directory contains both an x86-specific example
+and a more generic example of a higher level macro interface for BPF
+program generation.
+
+
+
+Adding architecture support
+-----------------------
+
+See arch/Kconfig for the authoritative requirements. In general, if an
+architecture supports both ptrace_event and seccomp, it will be able to
+support seccomp filter with minor fixup: SIGSYS support and seccomp return
+value checking. Then it must just add CONFIG_HAVE_ARCH_SECCOMP_FILTER
+to its arch-specific Kconfig.
projects / firefly-linux-kernel-4.4.55.git / blobdiff