Re: [RFC PATCH bpf-next 00/13] bpf: Introduce BPF namespace

[Alexei Starovoitov]

On Thu, Apr 06, 2023 at 01:22:26PM -0700, Andrii Nakryiko wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 5, 2023 at 10:44 PM Yafang Shao <laoar.shao@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, Apr 6, 2023 at 12:24 PM Alexei Starovoitov
> > <alexei.starovoitov@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Wed, Apr 5, 2023 at 8:22 PM Yafang Shao <laoar.shao@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Thu, Apr 6, 2023 at 11:06 AM Alexei Starovoitov
> > > > <alexei.starovoitov@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > On Wed, Apr 5, 2023 at 7:55 PM Yafang Shao <laoar.shao@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > It seems that I didn't describe the issue clearly.
> > > > > > The container doesn't have CAP_SYS_ADMIN, but the CAP_SYS_ADMIN is
> > > > > > required to run bpftool,  so the bpftool running in the container
> > > > > > can't get the ID of bpf objects or convert IDs to FDs.
> > > > > > Is there something that I missed ?
> > > > >
> > > > > Nothing. This is by design. bpftool needs sudo. That's all.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Hmm, what I'm trying to do is make bpftool run without sudo.
> > >
> > > This is not a task that is worth solving.
> > >
> >
> > Then the container with CAP_BPF enabled can't even iterate its bpf progs ...
> 
> I'll leave the BPF namespace discussion aside (I agree that it needs
> way more thought).
> 
> I am a bit surprised that we require CAP_SYS_ADMIN for GET_NEXT_ID
> operations. GET_FD_BY_ID is definitely CAP_SYS_ADMIN, as they allow
> you to take over someone else's link and stuff like this. But just
> iterating IDs seems like a pretty innocent functionality, so maybe we
> should remove CAP_SYS_ADMIN for GET_NEXT_ID?
> 
> By itself GET_NEXT_ID is relatively useless without capabilities, but
> we've been floating the idea of providing GET_INFO_BY_ID (not by FD)
> for a while now, and that seems useful in itself, as it would indeed
> help tools like bpftool to get *some* information even without
> privileges. Whether those GET_INFO_BY_ID operations should return same
> full bpf_{prog,map,link,btf}_info or some trimmed down version of them
> would be up to discussion, but I think getting some info without
> creating an FD seems useful in itself.
> 
> Would it be worth discussing and solving this separately from
> namespacing issues?

Iteration of IDs itself is fine. The set of IDs is not security sensitive,
but GET_NEXT_BY_ID has to be carefully restricted.
It returns xlated, jited, BTF, line info, etc
and with all the restrictions it would need something like
CAP_SYS_PTRACE and CAP_PERFMON to be useful.
And with that we're not far from CAP_SYS_ADMIN.
Why bother then?