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Commit 51e1bb9e authored by Daniel Borkmann's avatar Daniel Borkmann
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bpf: Add lockdown check for probe_write_user helper

Back then, commit 96ae5227 ("bpf: Add bpf_probe_write_user BPF helper
to be called in tracers") added the bpf_probe_write_user() helper in order
to allow to override user space memory. Its original goal was to have a
facility to "debug, divert, and manipulate execution of semi-cooperative
processes" under CAP_SYS_ADMIN. Write to kernel was explicitly disallowed
since it would otherwise tamper with its integrity.

One use case was shown in cf9b1199 ("samples/bpf: Add test/example of
using bpf_probe_write_user bpf helper") where the program DNATs traffic
at the time of connect(2) syscall, meaning, it rewrites the arguments to
a syscall while they're still in userspace, and before the syscall has a
chance to copy the argument into kernel space. These days we have better
mechanisms in BPF for achieving the same (e.g. for load-balancers), but
without having to write to userspace memory.

Of course the bpf_probe_write_user() helper can also be used to ...
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