linux-kernel - Re: Proposal: CAP_PAYLOAD to reduce Meltdown and Spectre mitigation costs

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Date:   Sun, 7 Jan 2018 07:29:18 -0500
From:   Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu>
To:     Avi Kivity <avi@...lladb.com>
Cc:     Alan Cox <gnomes@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
        "linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: Proposal: CAP_PAYLOAD to reduce Meltdown and Spectre mitigation
 costs

On Sun, Jan 07, 2018 at 11:16:28AM +0200, Avi Kivity wrote:
> I think capabilities will work just as well with cgroups. The container
> manager will set CAP_PAYLOAD to payload containers; and if those run an init
> system or a container manager themselves, they'll drop CAP_PAYLOAD for all
> process/sub-containers but their payloads.

The reason why cgroups are better is Spectre can be used to steal
information from within the same privilege level --- e.g., you could
use Javascript to steal a user's Coindesk credentials or Lastpass
data, which is going to be *way* more lucrative than trying to mine
cryptocurrency in the sly in a user's browser.  :-)

As a result, you probably want Spectre mitigations to be enabled in a
root process --- which means capabilities aren't the right answer.

Regards,

						- Ted