Re: [PATCH 2/2] proc: Add /proc/<pid>/timerslack_ns interface

[John Stultz]

On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 5:48 AM, Serge E. Hallyn <serge@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Quoting Kees Cook (keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx):
>> I think the original CAP_SYS_NICE should be fine. A malicious
>> CAP_SYS_NICE process can do plenty of insane things, I don't feel like
>> the timer slack adds to any realistic risks.
>
> Can someone give a detailed explanation of what you could do with
> the new timerslack feature and compare it to what you can do with
> sys_nice?

Looking at the man page for CAP_SYS_NICE, it looks like such a task
can set a task as SCHED_FIFO, so they could fork some spinning
processes and set them all SCHED_FIFO 99, in effect delaying all other
tasks for an infinite amount of time.

So one might argue setting large timerslack vlaues isn't that
different risk wise?

thanks
-john