linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] audit: check syscall bitmap on entry to avoid extra work

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Date:   Wed, 24 May 2023 22:15:33 -0400
From:   Paul Moore <paul@...l-moore.com>
To:     Ivan Babrou <ivan@...udflare.com>
Cc:     audit@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        kernel-team@...udflare.com, Eric Paris <eparis@...hat.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] audit: check syscall bitmap on entry to avoid extra work

On Wed, May 24, 2023 at 2:05 PM Ivan Babrou <ivan@...udflare.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, May 23, 2023 at 7:03 PM Paul Moore <paul@...l-moore.com> wrote:
> > > Could you elaborate on what exactly you would like to see added? It's
> > > not clear to me what is missing.
> >
> > I should have been more clear, let me try again ...
> >
> > From my perspective, this patch adds code and complexity to deal with
> > the performance impact of auditing.  In some cases that is the right
> > thing to do, but I would much rather see a more in-depth analysis of
> > where the audit hot spots are in this benchmark, and some thoughts on
> > how we might improve that.  In other words, don't just add additional
> > processing to bypass (slower, more involved) processing; look at the
> > processing that is currently being done and see if you can find a way
> > to make it faster.  It will likely take longer, but the results will
> > be much more useful.
>
> The fastest way to do something is to not do it to begin with.

While you are not wrong, I believe you and I are focusing on different
things.  From my perspective, you appear primarily concerned with
improving performance by reducing the overhead of auditing.  I too am
interested in reducing the audit overhead, but I also place a very
high value on maintainable code, perhaps more than performance simply
because the current audit code quality is so very poor.
Unfortunately, the patch you posted appears to me as yet another
bolt-on performance tweak that doesn't make an attempt at analyzing
the current hot spots of syscall auditing, and ideally offering
solutions.  Perhaps ultimately this approach is the only sane thing
that can be done, but I'd like to see some analysis first of the
syscall auditing path.

-- 
paul-moore.com