Re: [PATCH v17 01/15] Add PR_{GET,SET}_NO_NEW_PRIVS to prevent execvefrom granting privs

[Andrew Lutomirski]

On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 12:55 PM, Andrew Morton
<akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:01:46 -0500
> Will Drewry <wad@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> From: Andy Lutomirski <luto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>
>> With this set, a lot of dangerous operations (chroot, unshare, etc)
>> become a lot less dangerous because there is no possibility of
>> subverting privileged binaries.
>
> The changelog doesn't explain the semantics of the new syscall.
> There's a comment way-down-there which I guess suffices, if you hunt
> for it.
>
> And the changelog doesn't explain why this is being added.  Presumably
> seccomp_filter wants/needs this feature but whowhatwherewhenwhy?  Spell
> it all out, please.
>
> The new syscall mode will be documented in the prctl manpage.  Please
> cc linux-man@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and work with Michael on getting this
> done?

This has been bugging me for awhile.  Is there any interest in moving
the manpages into the kernel source tree?  Then there could be a
general requirement that new APIs get documented when they're written.

(There are plenty of barely- or incompletely-documented syscalls.
futex and relatives come to mind.)

--Andy
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