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NAME

       pkeys - overview of Memory Protection Keys

DESCRIPTION

       Memory Protection Keys (pkeys) are an extension to existing page-based memory permissions.
       Normal page  permissions  using  page  tables  require  expensive  system  calls  and  TLB
       invalidations  when  changing permissions.  Memory Protection Keys provide a mechanism for
       changing protections without requiring modification of the page tables on every permission
       change.

       To use pkeys, software must first "tag" a page in the page tables with a pkey.  After this
       tag is in place, an application only has to change the contents of a register in order  to
       remove write access, or all access to a tagged page.

       Protection keys work in conjunction with the existing PROT_READ, PROT_WRITE, and PROT_EXEC
       permissions passed to system calls such as mprotect(2) and  mmap(2),  but  always  act  to
       further restrict these traditional permission mechanisms.

       If  a  process  performs  an access that violates pkey restrictions, it receives a SIGSEGV
       signal.  See sigaction(2) for details of the information available with that signal.

       To use the pkeys feature, the processor must support  it,  and  the  kernel  must  contain
       support  for  the  feature  on  a given processor.  As of early 2016 only future Intel x86
       processors are supported, and this hardware supports 16 protection keys in  each  process.
       However,  pkey  0  is used as the default key, so a maximum of 15 are available for actual
       application use.  The default key is assigned to any memory region for which  a  pkey  has
       not been explicitly assigned via pkey_mprotect(2).

       Protection  keys  have  the  potential  to  add  a  layer  of  security and reliability to
       applications.  But they have not been primarily  designed  as  a  security  feature.   For
       instance,  WRPKRU  is  a  completely unprivileged instruction, so pkeys are useless in any
       case that an attacker controls the PKRU register or can execute arbitrary instructions.

       Applications should be very careful to ensure that they do  not  "leak"  protection  keys.
       For  instance,  before calling pkey_free(2), the application should be sure that no memory
       has that pkey assigned.  If the application left the freed pkey assigned, a future user of
       that pkey might inadvertently change the permissions of an unrelated data structure, which
       could impact security or stability.  The kernel currently  allows  in-use  pkeys  to  have
       pkey_free(2)  called  on  them  because  it  would  have  processor  or memory performance
       implications to perform the additional checks needed to disallow  it.   Implementation  of
       the  necessary checks is left up to applications.  Applications may implement these checks
       by searching the /proc/pid/smaps file for memory regions with the pkey assigned.   Further
       details can be found in proc(5).

       Any  application wanting to use protection keys needs to be able to function without them.
       They might be unavailable because the hardware that  the  application  runs  on  does  not
       support  them,  the  kernel  code  does  not  contain support, the kernel support has been
       disabled, or because  the  keys  have  all  been  allocated,  perhaps  by  a  library  the
       application  is using.  It is recommended that applications wanting to use protection keys
       should simply call pkey_alloc(2) and test whether the call succeeds, instead of attempting
       to detect support for the feature in any other way.

       Although  unnecessary,  hardware  support  for  protection keys may be enumerated with the
       cpuid instruction.  Details of how  to  do  this  can  be  found  in  the  Intel  Software
       Developers  Manual.   The  kernel performs this enumeration and exposes the information in
       /proc/cpuinfo under the "flags" field.  The string "pku" in this field indicates  hardware
       support  for protection keys and the string "ospke" indicates that the kernel contains and
       has enabled protection keys support.

       Applications using threads and protection keys  should  be  especially  careful.   Threads
       inherit  the protection key rights of the parent at the time of the clone(2), system call.
       Applications should either ensure that their own permissions  are  appropriate  for  child
       threads  at the time when clone(2) is called, or ensure that each child thread can perform
       its own initialization of protection key rights.

   Signal Handler Behavior
       Each time  a  signal  handler  is  invoked  (including  nested  signals),  the  thread  is
       temporarily  given  a  new,  default set of protection key rights that override the rights
       from the interrupted context.   This  means  that  applications  must  re-establish  their
       desired  protection key rights upon entering a signal handler if the desired rights differ
       from the defaults.  The rights of any interrupted context are  restored  when  the  signal
       handler returns.

       This  signal  behavior is unusual and is due to the fact that the x86 PKRU register (which
       stores protection key access rights) is managed with the same hardware  mechanism  (XSAVE)
       that  manages  floating-point  registers.   The  signal  behavior  is  the same as that of
       floating-point registers.

   Protection Keys system calls
       The Linux kernel implements the following  pkey-related  system  calls:  pkey_mprotect(2),
       pkey_alloc(2), and pkey_free(2).

       The Linux pkey system calls are available only if the kernel was configured and built with
       the CONFIG_X86_INTEL_MEMORY_PROTECTION_KEYS option.

EXAMPLES

       The program below allocates a page of memory with read and  write  permissions.   It  then
       writes some data to the memory and successfully reads it back.  After that, it attempts to
       allocate a  protection  key  and  disallows  access  to  the  page  by  using  the  WRPKRU
       instruction.   It  then  tries  to  access  the page, which we now expect to cause a fatal
       signal to the application.

           $ ./a.out
           buffer contains: 73
           about to read buffer again...
           Segmentation fault (core dumped)

   Program source

       #define _GNU_SOURCE
       #include <err.h>
       #include <unistd.h>
       #include <stdio.h>
       #include <stdlib.h>
       #include <sys/mman.h>

       int
       main(void)
       {
           int status;
           int pkey;
           int *buffer;

           /*
            * Allocate one page of memory.
            */
           buffer = mmap(NULL, getpagesize(), PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,
                         MAP_ANONYMOUS | MAP_PRIVATE, -1, 0);
           if (buffer == MAP_FAILED)
               err(EXIT_FAILURE, "mmap");

           /*
            * Put some random data into the page (still OK to touch).
            */
           *buffer = __LINE__;
           printf("buffer contains: %d\n", *buffer);

           /*
            * Allocate a protection key:
            */
           pkey = pkey_alloc(0, 0);
           if (pkey == -1)
               err(EXIT_FAILURE, "pkey_alloc");

           /*
            * Disable access to any memory with "pkey" set,
            * even though there is none right now.
            */
           status = pkey_set(pkey, PKEY_DISABLE_ACCESS);
           if (status)
               err(EXIT_FAILURE, "pkey_set");

           /*
            * Set the protection key on "buffer".
            * Note that it is still read/write as far as mprotect() is
            * concerned and the previous pkey_set() overrides it.
            */
           status = pkey_mprotect(buffer, getpagesize(),
                                  PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE, pkey);
           if (status == -1)
               err(EXIT_FAILURE, "pkey_mprotect");

           printf("about to read buffer again...\n");

           /*
            * This will crash, because we have disallowed access.
            */
           printf("buffer contains: %d\n", *buffer);

           status = pkey_free(pkey);
           if (status == -1)
               err(EXIT_FAILURE, "pkey_free");

           exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
       }

SEE ALSO

       pkey_alloc(2), pkey_free(2), pkey_mprotect(2), sigaction(2)