Re: IOPRIO_CLASS_RT without CAP_SYS_ADMIN?

[Khazhismel Kumykov]

On Sat, Aug 22, 2020 at 7:14 PM Jens Axboe <axboe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On 8/22/20 7:58 PM, Bart Van Assche wrote:
> > On 2020-08-20 17:35, Khazhismel Kumykov wrote:
> >> It'd be nice to allow a process to send RT requests without granting
> >> it the wide capabilities of CAP_SYS_ADMIN, and we already have a
> >> capability which seems to almost fit this priority idea -
> >> CAP_SYS_NICE? Would this fit there?
> >>
> >> Being capable of setting IO priorities on per request or per thread
> >> basis (be it async submission or w/ thread ioprio_set) is useful
> >> especially when the userspace has its own prioritization/scheduling
> >> before hitting the kernel, allowing us to signal to the kernel how to
> >> order certain IOs, and it'd be nice to separate this from ADMIN for
> >> non-root processes, in a way that's less error prone than e.g. having
> >> a trusted launcher ionice the process and then drop priorities for
> >> everything but prio requests.
> >
> > Hi Khazhy,
> >
> > In include/uapi/linux/capability.h I found the following:
> >
> > /* Allow raising priority and setting priority on other (different
> >    UID) processes */
> > /* Allow use of FIFO and round-robin (realtime) scheduling on own
> >    processes and setting the scheduling algorithm used by another
> >    process. */
> > /* Allow setting cpu affinity on other processes */
> > #define CAP_SYS_NICE         23
> >
> > If it is acceptable that every process that has permission to submit
> > IOPRIO_CLASS_RT I/O also has permission to modify the priority of
> > other processes then extending CAP_SYS_NICE is an option. Another
> > possibility is to extend the block cgroup controller such that the
> > capability to submit IOPRIO_CLASS_RT I/O can be enabled through the
> > cgroup interface. There may be other approaches. I'm not sure what
> > the best approach is.

I think it fits well with CAP_SYS_NICE, especially since that
capability already grants the ability to demote other processes to
IOPRIO_CLASS_IDLE, etc.

>
> I think CAP_SYS_NICE fits pretty nicely, and I was actually planning on
> using that for the io_uring SQPOLL side as well. So there is/will be
> some precedent for tying it into IO related things, too. For this use
> case, I think it's perfect.
>
> --
> Jens Axboe
>

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