Re: [PATCH] getrusage sucks

From: Lee Revell
Date: Fri Nov 11 2005 - 14:11:51 EST


On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 05:06 +0000, David Wagner wrote:
> Claudio Scordino wrote:
> >Does exist any _real_ reason why getrusage can't be invoked by a task to know
> >statistics of another task ?
>
> Probably only super-user should be permitted to read the usage information
> about other processes. Allowing anyone to read anyone else's rusage would
> open up a bunch of side channels that sound pretty dangerous. For instance,
> user #1 might be able to mount a timing attack against crypto code being
> executed by user #2, and that doesn't sound good.

Why restrict it to root? Why not just prevent users from reading other
users rusage. How could it be a security hole for joeuser's process be
able to read the rusage of joeuser's other processes?

Lee

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