linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] mm/mincore: allow for making sys

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Date:   Sat, 5 Jan 2019 23:54:32 +0100
From:   Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>
To:     Jiri Kosina <jikos@...nel.org>
Cc:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.com>, Linux-MM <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
        kernel list <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linux API <linux-api@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] mm/mincore: allow for making sys_mincore() privileged

On Sat, Jan 5, 2019 at 6:27 PM Jiri Kosina <jikos@...nel.org> wrote:
> There are possibilities [1] how mincore() could be used as a converyor of
> a sidechannel information about pagecache metadata.
>
> Provide vm.mincore_privileged sysctl, which makes it possible to mincore()
> start returning -EPERM in case it's invoked by a process lacking
> CAP_SYS_ADMIN.
>
> The default behavior stays "mincore() can be used by anybody" in order to
> be conservative with respect to userspace behavior.
>
> [1] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/05/boffins_beat_page_cache/

Just checking: I guess /proc/$pid/pagemap (iow, the pagemap_read()
handler) is less problematic because it only returns data about the
state of page tables, and doesn't query the address_space? In other
words, it permits monitoring evictions, but non-intrusively detecting
that something has been loaded into memory by another process is
harder?