[PATCH v2 0/2]: Documentation/admin-guide: introduce perf-security.rst file and extend perf_event_paranoid documentation

From: Alexey Budankov
Date: Tue Nov 20 2018 - 04:21:40 EST



To facilitate informed decision making by system administrators [1]
to permit and manage access to Perf Events (PE) / Perf tool (Perf) [2],[3]
performance monitoring for multiple users perf-security.rst document
suggested by Thomas Gleixner is introduced [4] that:

a) states PE/Perf access security concerns for multi user environment
b) refers to base Linux access control and management principles
c) extends documentation of possible perf_event_paranoid knob settings

The file serves as single knowledge source for PE/Perf security and
access control related matter according to decisions, discussion and
PoC prototype previously made here [5],[6].

The file can later be extended with information describing:

a) PE/Perf usage models and its security implications
b) PE/Perf user interface, its changes and related security implications
c) security related implications of monitoring by a specific PE PMU [2]

---
Alexey Budankov (2):
Documentation/admin-guide: introduce perf-security.rst file
Documentation/admin-guide: update admin-guide index.rst

Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst | 1 +
Documentation/admin-guide/perf-security.rst | 76 +++++++++++++++++++++
2 files changed, 77 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 Documentation/admin-guide/perf-security.rst

---
Changes in v2:
- reverted patches order in the set to avoid CI issue
- replaced old PCL referencing by PE (Perf Events)
- skipped >=3 setting documentation at the moment

---
[1] https://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=153815883923913&w=2
[2] http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/perf_event_open.2.html
[3] https://perf.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page
[4] https://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=153837512226838&w=2
[5] https://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=153736008310781&w=2
[6] https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/5/21/156