[RFC PATCH v5 4/4] mseal:add documentation

[jeffxu]

From: Jeff Xu <jeffxu@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

Add documentation for mseal().

Signed-off-by: Jeff Xu <jeffxu@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
 Documentation/userspace-api/mseal.rst | 181 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 181 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/userspace-api/mseal.rst

diff --git a/Documentation/userspace-api/mseal.rst b/Documentation/userspace-api/mseal.rst
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/Documentation/userspace-api/mseal.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,181 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+=====================
+Introduction of mseal
+=====================
+
+:Author: Jeff Xu <jeffxu@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
+
+Modern CPUs support memory permissions such as RW and NX bits. The memory
+permission feature improves security stance on memory corruption bugs, i.e.
+the attacker can’t just write to arbitrary memory and point the code to it,
+the memory has to be marked with X bit, or else an exception will happen.
+
+Memory sealing additionally protects the mapping itself against
+modifications. This is useful to mitigate memory corruption issues where a
+corrupted pointer is passed to a memory management system. For example,
+such an attacker primitive can break control-flow integrity guarantees
+since read-only memory that is supposed to be trusted can become writable
+or .text pages can get remapped. Memory sealing can automatically be
+applied by the runtime loader to seal .text and .rodata pages and
+applications can additionally seal security critical data at runtime.
+
+A similar feature already exists in the XNU kernel with the
+VM_FLAGS_PERMANENT flag [1] and on OpenBSD with the mimmutable syscall [2].
+
+User API
+========
+Two system calls are involved in virtual memory sealing, mseal() and mmap().
+
+mseal()
+-----------
+The mseal() syscall has following signature:
+
+``int mseal(void addr, size_t len, unsigned long flags)``
+
+**addr/len**: virtual memory address range.
+
+The address range set by ``addr``/``len`` must meet:
+   - The start address must be in an allocated VMA.
+   - The start address must be page aligned.
+   - The end address (``addr`` + ``len``) must be in an allocated VMA.
+   - no gap (unallocated memory) between start and end address.
+
+The ``len`` will be paged aligned implicitly by the kernel.
+
+**flags**: reserved for future use.
+
+**return values**:
+
+- ``0``: Success.
+
+- ``-EINVAL``:
+    - Invalid input ``flags``.
+    - The start address (``addr``) is not page aligned.
+    - Address range (``addr`` + ``len``) overflow.
+
+- ``-ENOMEM``:
+    - The start address (``addr``) is not allocated.
+    - The end address (``addr`` + ``len``) is not allocated.
+    - A gap (unallocated memory) between start and end address.
+
+- ``-EACCES``:
+    - ``MAP_SEALABLE`` is not set during mmap().
+
+- ``-EPERM``:
+    - sealing is supported only on 64 bit CPUs, 32-bit is not supported.
+
+- For above error cases, users can expect the given memory range is
+  unmodified, i.e. no partial update.
+
+- There might be other internal errors/cases not listed here, e.g.
+  error during merging/splitting VMAs, or the process reaching the max
+  number of supported VMAs. In those cases, partial updates to the given
+  memory range could happen. However, those cases shall be rare.
+
+**Blocked operations after sealing**:
+    Unmapping, moving to another location, and shrinking the size,
+    via munmap() and mremap(), can leave an empty space, therefore
+    can be replaced with a VMA with a new set of attributes.
+
+    Moving or expanding a different VMA into the current location,
+    via mremap().
+
+    Modifying a VMA via mmap(MAP_FIXED).
+
+    Size expansion, via mremap(), does not appear to pose any
+    specific risks to sealed VMAs. It is included anyway because
+    the use case is unclear. In any case, users can rely on
+    merging to expand a sealed VMA.
+
+    mprotect() and pkey_mprotect().
+
+    Some destructive madvice() behaviors (e.g. MADV_DONTNEED)
+    for anonymous memory, when users don't have write permission to the
+    memory. Those behaviors can alter region contents by discarding pages,
+    effectively a memset(0) for anonymous memory.
+
+**Note**:
+
+- mseal() only works on 64-bit CPUs, not 32-bit CPU.
+
+- users can call mseal() multiple times, mseal() on an already sealed memory
+  is a no-action (not error).
+
+- munseal() is not supported.
+
+mmap()
+----------
+``void *mmap(void* addr, size_t length, int prot, int flags, int fd,
+off_t offset);``
+
+We add two changes in ``prot`` and ``flags`` of  mmap() related to
+memory sealing.
+
+**prot**
+
+The ``PROT_SEAL`` bit in ``prot`` field of mmap().
+
+When present, it marks the memory is sealed since creation.
+
+This is useful as optimization because it avoids having to make two
+system calls: one for mmap() and one for mseal().
+
+It's worth noting that even though the sealing is set via the
+``prot`` field in mmap(), it can't be set in the ``prot``
+field in later mprotect(). This is unlike the ``PROT_READ``,
+``PROT_WRITE``, ``PROT_EXEC`` bits, e.g. if ``PROT_WRITE`` is not set in
+mprotect(), it means that the region is not writable.
+
+Setting ``PROT_SEAL`` implies setting ``MAP_SEALABLE`` below.
+
+**flags**
+
+The ``MAP_SEALABLE`` bit in the ``flags`` field of mmap().
+
+When present, it marks the map as sealable. A map created
+without ``MAP_SEALABLE`` will not support sealing; In other words,
+mseal() will fail for such a map.
+
+
+Applications that don't care about sealing will expect their
+behavior unchanged. For those that need sealing support, opt-in
+by adding ``MAP_SEALABLE`` in mmap().
+
+Note: for a map created without ``MAP_SEALABLE`` or a map created
+with ``MAP_SEALABLE`` but not sealed yet, mmap(MAP_FIXED) can
+change the sealable or sealing bit.
+
+Use Case:
+=========
+- glibc:
+  The dynamic linker, during loading ELF executables, can apply sealing to
+  non-writable memory segments.
+
+- Chrome browser: protect some security sensitive data-structures.
+
+Additional notes:
+=================
+As Jann Horn pointed out in [3], there are still a few ways to write
+to RO memory, which is, in a way, by design. Those cases are not covered
+by mseal(). If applications want to block such cases, sandbox tools (such as
+seccomp, LSM, etc) might be considered.
+
+Those cases are:
+
+- Write to read-only memory through /proc/self/mem interface.
+- Write to read-only memory through ptrace (such as PTRACE_POKETEXT).
+- userfaultfd.
+
+The idea that inspired this patch comes from Stephen Röttger’s work in V8
+CFI [4]. Chrome browser in ChromeOS will be the first user of this API.
+
+Reference:
+==========
+[1] https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu/blob/1031c584a5e37aff177559b9f69dbd3c8c3fd30a/osfmk/mach/vm_statistics.h#L274
+
+[2] https://man.openbsd.org/mimmutable.2
+
+[3] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAG48ez3ShUYey+ZAFsU2i1RpQn0a5eOs2hzQ426FkcgnfUGLvA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
+
+[4] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O2jwK4dxI3nRcOJuPYkonhTkNQfbmwdvxQMyXgeaRHo/edit#heading=h.bvaojj9fu6hc
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