Here's a set of patches to add a general notification queue concept and to add sources of events for: (1) Key/keyring events, such as creating, linking and removal of keys. (2) General device events (single common queue) including: - Block layer events, such as device errors - USB subsystem events, such as device/bus attach/remove, device reset, device errors. LSM hooks are included: (1) A set of hooks are provided that allow an LSM to rule on whether or not a watch may be set. Each of these hooks takes a different "watched object" parameter, so they're not really shareable. The LSM should use current's credentials. [Wanted by SELinux & Smack] (2) A hook is provided to allow an LSM to rule on whether or not a particular message may be posted to a particular queue. This is given the credentials from the event generator (which may be the system) and the watch setter. [Wanted by Smack] Design decisions: (1) A misc chardev is used to create and open a ring buffer: fd = open("/dev/watch_queue", O_RDWR); which is then configured and mmap'd into userspace: ioctl(fd, IOC_WATCH_QUEUE_SET_SIZE, BUF_SIZE); ioctl(fd, IOC_WATCH_QUEUE_SET_FILTER, &filter); buf = mmap(NULL, BUF_SIZE * page_size, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED, fd, 0); The fd cannot be read or written (though there is a facility to use write to inject records for debugging) and userspace just pulls data directly out of the buffer. (2) The ring index pointers are stored inside the ring and are thus accessible to userspace. Userspace should only update the tail pointer and never the head pointer or risk breaking the buffer. The kernel checks that the pointers appear valid before trying to use them. A 'skip' record is maintained around the pointers. (3) poll() can be used to wait for data to appear in the buffer. (4) Records in the buffer are binary, typed and have a length so that they can be of varying size. This means that multiple heterogeneous sources can share a common buffer. Tags may be specified when a watchpoint is created to help distinguish the sources. (5) The queue is reusable as there are 16 million types available, of which I've used just a few, so there is scope for others to be used. (6) Records are filterable as types have up to 256 subtypes that can be individually filtered. Other filtration is also available. (7) Each time the buffer is opened, a new buffer is created - this means that there's no interference between watchers. (8) When recording a notification, the kernel will not sleep, but will rather mark a queue as overrun if there's insufficient space, thereby avoiding userspace causing the kernel to hang. (9) The 'watchpoint' should be specific where possible, meaning that you specify the object that you want to watch. (10) The buffer is created and then watchpoints are attached to it, using one of: keyctl_watch_key(KEY_SPEC_SESSION_KEYRING, fd, 0x01); watch_devices(fd, 0x02, 0); where in both cases, fd indicates the queue and the number after is a tag between 0 and 255. (11) The watch must be removed if either the watch buffer is destroyed or the watched object is destroyed. Things I want to avoid: (1) Introducing features that make the core VFS dependent on the network stack or networking namespaces (ie. usage of netlink). (2) Dumping all this stuff into dmesg and having a daemon that sits there parsing the output and distributing it as this then puts the responsibility for security into userspace and makes handling namespaces tricky. Further, dmesg might not exist or might be inaccessible inside a container. (3) Letting users see events they shouldn't be able to see. The patches can be found here also: http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/dhowells/linux-fs.git/log/?h=notifications-core Changes: ver #5: (*) Split the superblock watch and mount watch parts out into their own branch (notifications-mount) as they really need certain fsinfo() attributes. (*) Rearrange the watch notification UAPI header to push the length down to bits 0-5 and remove the lost-message bits. The userspace's watch ID tag is moved to bits 8-15 and then the message type is allocated all of bits 16-31 for its own purposes. The lost-message bit is moved over to the header, rather than being placed in the next message to be generated and given its own word so it can be cleared with xchg(,0) for parisc. (*) The security_post_notification() hook is no longer called with the spinlock held and softirqs disabled - though the RCU readlock is still held. (*) Buffer pages are now accounted towards RLIMIT_MEMLOCK and CAP_IPC_LOCK will skip the overuse check. (*) The buffer is marked VM_DONTEXPAND. (*) Save the watch-setter's creds in struct watch and give that to the LSM hook for posting a message. ver #4: (*) Split the basic UAPI bits out into their own patch and then split the LSM hooks out into an intermediate patch. Add LSM hooks for setting watches. Rename the *_notify() system calls to watch_*() for consistency. ver #3: (*) I've added a USB notification source and reformulated the block notification source so that there's now a common watch list, for which the system call is now device_notify(). I've assigned a pair of unused ioctl numbers in the 'W' series to the ioctls added by this series. I've also added a description of the kernel API to the documentation. ver #2: (*) I've fixed various issues raised by Jann Horn and GregKH and moved to krefs for refcounting. I've added some security features to try and give Casey Schaufler the LSM control he wants. David --- David Howells (9): uapi: General notification ring definitions security: Add hooks to rule on setting a watch security: Add a hook for the point of notification insertion General notification queue with user mmap()'able ring buffer keys: Add a notification facility Add a general, global device notification watch list block: Add block layer notifications usb: Add USB subsystem notifications Add sample notification program Documentation/ioctl/ioctl-number.txt | 1 Documentation/security/keys/core.rst | 58 ++ Documentation/watch_queue.rst | 460 ++++++++++++++ arch/alpha/kernel/syscalls/syscall.tbl | 1 arch/arm/tools/syscall.tbl | 1 arch/ia64/kernel/syscalls/syscall.tbl | 1 arch/m68k/kernel/syscalls/syscall.tbl | 1 arch/microblaze/kernel/syscalls/syscall.tbl | 1 arch/mips/kernel/syscalls/syscall_n32.tbl | 1 arch/mips/kernel/syscalls/syscall_n64.tbl | 1 arch/mips/kernel/syscalls/syscall_o32.tbl | 1 arch/parisc/kernel/syscalls/syscall.tbl | 1 arch/powerpc/kernel/syscalls/syscall.tbl | 1 arch/s390/kernel/syscalls/syscall.tbl | 1 arch/sh/kernel/syscalls/syscall.tbl | 1 arch/sparc/kernel/syscalls/syscall.tbl | 1 arch/x86/entry/syscalls/syscall_32.tbl | 1 arch/x86/entry/syscalls/syscall_64.tbl | 1 arch/xtensa/kernel/syscalls/syscall.tbl | 1 block/Kconfig | 9 block/blk-core.c | 29 + drivers/base/Kconfig | 9 drivers/base/Makefile | 1 drivers/base/watch.c | 90 +++ drivers/misc/Kconfig | 13 drivers/misc/Makefile | 1 drivers/misc/watch_queue.c | 890 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ drivers/usb/core/Kconfig | 10 drivers/usb/core/devio.c | 56 ++ drivers/usb/core/hub.c | 3 include/linux/blkdev.h | 15 include/linux/device.h | 7 include/linux/key.h | 4 include/linux/lsm_hooks.h | 32 + include/linux/security.h | 25 + include/linux/syscalls.h | 1 include/linux/usb.h | 19 + include/linux/watch_queue.h | 94 +++ include/uapi/asm-generic/unistd.h | 4 include/uapi/linux/keyctl.h | 1 include/uapi/linux/watch_queue.h | 170 +++++ kernel/sys_ni.c | 1 samples/Kconfig | 6 samples/Makefile | 1 samples/watch_queue/Makefile | 8 samples/watch_queue/watch_test.c | 233 +++++++ security/keys/Kconfig | 10 security/keys/compat.c | 2 security/keys/gc.c | 5 security/keys/internal.h | 30 + security/keys/key.c | 37 + security/keys/keyctl.c | 95 +++ security/keys/keyring.c | 17 - security/keys/request_key.c | 4 security/security.c | 19 + 55 files changed, 2461 insertions(+), 25 deletions(-) create mode 100644 Documentation/watch_queue.rst create mode 100644 drivers/base/watch.c create mode 100644 drivers/misc/watch_queue.c create mode 100644 include/linux/watch_queue.h create mode 100644 include/uapi/linux/watch_queue.h create mode 100644 samples/watch_queue/Makefile create mode 100644 samples/watch_queue/watch_test.c