The patch titled Subject: mm/madvise: replace ptrace attach requirement for process_madvise has been added to the -mm tree. Its filename is mm-madvise-replace-ptrace-attach-requirement-for-process_madvise.patch This patch should soon appear at https://ozlabs.org/~akpm/mmots/broken-out/mm-madvise-replace-ptrace-attach-requirement-for-process_madvise.patch and later at https://ozlabs.org/~akpm/mmotm/broken-out/mm-madvise-replace-ptrace-attach-requirement-for-process_madvise.patch Before you just go and hit "reply", please: a) Consider who else should be cc'ed b) Prefer to cc a suitable mailing list as well c) Ideally: find the original patch on the mailing list and do a reply-to-all to that, adding suitable additional cc's *** Remember to use Documentation/process/submit-checklist.rst when testing your code *** The -mm tree is included into linux-next and is updated there every 3-4 working days ------------------------------------------------------ From: Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@xxxxxxxxxx> Subject: mm/madvise: replace ptrace attach requirement for process_madvise process_madvise currently requires ptrace attach capability. PTRACE_MODE_ATTACH gives one process complete control over another process. It effectively removes the security boundary between the two processes (in one direction). Granting ptrace attach capability even to a system process is considered dangerous since it creates an attack surface. This severely limits the usage of this API. The operations process_madvise can perform do not affect the correctness of the operation of the target process; they only affect where the data is physically located (and therefore, how fast it can be accessed). What we want is the ability for one process to influence another process in order to optimize performance across the entire system while leaving the security boundary intact. Replace PTRACE_MODE_ATTACH with a combination of PTRACE_MODE_READ and CAP_SYS_NICE. PTRACE_MODE_READ to prevent leaking ASLR metadata and CAP_SYS_NICE for influencing process performance. Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20210303185807.2160264-1-surenb@xxxxxxxxxx Signed-off-by: Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@xxxxxxxxxx> Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Acked-by: Minchan Kim <minchan@xxxxxxxxxx> Acked-by: David Rientjes <rientjes@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Jann Horn <jannh@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Jeff Vander Stoep <jeffv@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxx> Cc: Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Tim Murray <timmurray@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Florian Weimer <fweimer@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: James Morris <jmorris@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> [5.10+] Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- mm/madvise.c | 13 ++++++++++++- 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) --- a/mm/madvise.c~mm-madvise-replace-ptrace-attach-requirement-for-process_madvise +++ a/mm/madvise.c @@ -1198,12 +1198,22 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE5(process_madvise, int, pi goto release_task; } - mm = mm_access(task, PTRACE_MODE_ATTACH_FSCREDS); + /* Require PTRACE_MODE_READ to avoid leaking ASLR metadata. */ + mm = mm_access(task, PTRACE_MODE_READ_FSCREDS); if (IS_ERR_OR_NULL(mm)) { ret = IS_ERR(mm) ? PTR_ERR(mm) : -ESRCH; goto release_task; } + /* + * Require CAP_SYS_NICE for influencing process performance. Note that + * only non-destructive hints are currently supported. + */ + if (!capable(CAP_SYS_NICE)) { + ret = -EPERM; + goto release_mm; + } + total_len = iov_iter_count(&iter); while (iov_iter_count(&iter)) { @@ -1218,6 +1228,7 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE5(process_madvise, int, pi if (ret == 0) ret = total_len - iov_iter_count(&iter); +release_mm: mmput(mm); release_task: put_task_struct(task); _ Patches currently in -mm which might be from surenb@xxxxxxxxxx are mm-madvise-replace-ptrace-attach-requirement-for-process_madvise.patch