Allow the use of system wide perf counters to everybody, but provide a sysctl to disable it for the paranoid security minded. Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra --- include/linux/perf_counter.h | 2 ++ kernel/perf_counter.c | 4 +++- kernel/sysctl.c | 11 +++++++++++ 3 files changed, 16 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) Index: linux-2.6/include/linux/perf_counter.h =================================================================== --- linux-2.6.orig/include/linux/perf_counter.h +++ linux-2.6/include/linux/perf_counter.h @@ -568,6 +568,8 @@ struct perf_callchain_entry { extern struct perf_callchain_entry *perf_callchain(struct pt_regs *regs); +extern int sysctl_perf_counter_priv; + #else static inline void perf_counter_task_sched_in(struct task_struct *task, int cpu) { } Index: linux-2.6/kernel/perf_counter.c =================================================================== --- linux-2.6.orig/kernel/perf_counter.c +++ linux-2.6/kernel/perf_counter.c @@ -42,6 +42,8 @@ static atomic_t nr_mmap_tracking __read_ static atomic_t nr_munmap_tracking __read_mostly; static atomic_t nr_comm_tracking __read_mostly; +int sysctl_perf_counter_priv; /* do we need to be privileged */ + /* * Mutex for (sysadmin-configurable) counter reservations: */ @@ -1132,7 +1134,7 @@ static struct perf_counter_context *find */ if (cpu != -1) { /* Must be root to operate on a CPU counter: */ - if (!capable(CAP_SYS_ADMIN)) + if (sysctl_perf_counter_priv && !capable(CAP_SYS_ADMIN)) return ERR_PTR(-EACCES); if (cpu < 0 || cpu > num_possible_cpus()) Index: linux-2.6/kernel/sysctl.c =================================================================== --- linux-2.6.orig/kernel/sysctl.c +++ linux-2.6/kernel/sysctl.c @@ -50,6 +50,7 @@ #include #include #include +#include #include #include @@ -931,6 +932,16 @@ static struct ctl_table kern_table[] = { .child = slow_work_sysctls, }, #endif +#ifdef CONFIG_PERF_COUNTERS + { + .ctl_name = CTL_UNNUMBERED, + .procname = "perf_counter_privileged", + .data = &sysctl_perf_counter_priv, + .maxlen = sizeof(sysctl_perf_counter_priv), + .mode = 0644, + .proc_handler = &proc_dointvec, + }, +#endif /* * NOTE: do not add new entries to this table unless you have read * Documentation/sysctl/ctl_unnumbered.txt -- -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/