linux-kernel - Re: [RESEND PATCH v6 0/5] proc: subset=pid: Relax check of mount visibility

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Message-ID: <aUAiIkNPgied0Tyf@example.org>
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2025 15:58:42 +0100
From: Alexey Gladkov <legion@...nel.org>
To: Dan Klishch <danilklishch@...il.com>
Cc: brauner@...nel.org, containers@...ts.linux-foundation.org,
	ebiederm@...ssion.com, keescook@...omium.org,
	linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	viro@...iv.linux.org.uk
Subject: Re: [RESEND PATCH v6 0/5] proc: subset=pid: Relax check of mount
 visibility

On Mon, Dec 15, 2025 at 09:46:00AM -0500, Dan Klishch wrote:
> On 12/15/25 5:10 AM, Alexey Gladkov wrote:
> > On Sun, Dec 14, 2025 at 01:02:54PM -0500, Dan Klishch wrote:
> >> On 12/14/25 11:40 AM, Alexey Gladkov wrote:
> >>> But then, if I understand you correctly, this patch will not be enough
> >>> for you. procfs with subset=pid will not allow you to have /proc/meminfo,
> >>> /proc/cpuinfo, etc.
> >>
> >> Hmm, I didn't think of this. sunwalker-box only exposes cpuinfo and PID
> >> tree to the sandboxed programs (empirically, this is enough for most of
> >> programs you want sandboxing for). With that in mind, this patch and a
> >> FUSE providing an overlay with cpuinfo / seccomp intercepting opens of
> >> /proc/cpuinfo / a small kernel patch with a new mount option for procfs
> >> to expose more static files still look like a clean solution to me.
> > 
> > I don't think you'll be able to do that. procfs doesn't allow itself to
> > be overlayed [1]. What should block mounting overlayfs and fuse on top
> > of procfs.
> > 
> > [1] https://web.git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/fs/proc/root.c#n274
> 
> This is why I have been careful not to say overlayfs. With [2] (warning:
> zero-shot ChatGPT output), I can do:
> 
> $ ./fuse-overlay target --source=/proc
> $ ls target
> 1   88   194   1374    889840  908552
> 2   90   195   1375    889987  908619
> 3   91   196   1379    890031  908658
> 4   92   203   1412    890063  908756
> 5   93   205   1590    890085  908804
> 6   94   233   1644    890139  908951
> 7   96   237   1802    890246  909848
> 8   97   239   1850    890271  909914
> 10  98   240   1852    894665  909924
> 13  99   243   1865    895854  909926
> 15  100  244   1888    895864  910005
> 16  102  246   1889    896030  acpi
> 17  103  262   1891    896205  asound
> 18  104  263   1895    896508  bus
> 19  105  264   1896    896544  driver
> 20  106  265   1899    896706  dynamic_debug
> <...>
> 
> [2] https://gist.github.com/DanShaders/547eeb74a90315356b98472feae47474
> 
> This requires a much more careful thought wrt magic symlinks
> and permission checks. The fact that I am highly unlikely to 100%
> correctly reimplement the checks and special behavior of procfs makes me
> not want to proceed with the FUSE route.
> 
> On 12/15/25 6:30 AM, Christian Brauner wrote:
> > The standard way of making it possible to mount procfs inside of a
> > container with a separate mount namespace that has a procfs inside it
> > with overmounted entries is to ensure that a fully-visible procfs
> > instance is present.
> 
> Yes, this is a solution. However, this is only marginally better than
> passing --privileged to the outer container (in a sense that we require
> outer sandbox to remove some protections for the inner sandbox to work).
> 
> > The container needs to inherit a fully-visible instance somehow if you
> > want nesting. Using an unprivileged LSM such as landlock to prevent any
> > access to the fully visible procfs instance is usually the better way.
> > 
> > My hope is that once signed bpf is more widely adopted that distros will
> > just start enabling blessed bpf programs that will just take on the
> > access protecting instead of the clumsy bind-mount protection mechanism.
> 
> These are big changes to container runtimes that are unlikely to happen
> soon. In contrast, the patch we are discussing will be available in 2
> months after the merge for me to use on ArchLinux, and in a couple more
> months on Ubuntu.
> 
> So, is there any way forward with the patch or should I continue trying
> to find a userspace solution?

I still consider these patches useful. I made them precisely to remove
some of the restrictions we have for procfs because of global files in
the root of this filesystem.

I can update and prepare a new version of patchset if Christian thinks
it's useful too.

-- 
Rgrds, legion