Add the rt linux 4.1.3-rt3 as base

[kvmfornfv.git] / kernel / Documentation / cgroups / devices.txt

diff --git a/kernel/Documentation/cgroups/devices.txt b/kernel/Documentation/cgroups/devices.txt
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+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.