- Notes on accessing payload contents
- Defining a key type
- Request-key callback service
- - Key access filesystem
+ - Garbage collection
============
(*) Dead. The key's type was unregistered, and so the key is now useless.
+Keys in the last three states are subject to garbage collection. See the
+section on "Garbage collection".
+
====================
KEY SERVICE OVERVIEW
amount of description and payload space that can be consumed.
The user can view information on this and other statistics through procfs
- files.
+ files. The root user may also alter the quota limits through sysctl files
+ (see the section "New procfs files").
Process-specific and thread-specific keyrings are not counted towards a
user's quota.
<bytes>/<max> Key size quota
+Four new sysctl files have been added also for the purpose of controlling the
+quota limits on keys:
+
+ (*) /proc/sys/kernel/keys/root_maxkeys
+ /proc/sys/kernel/keys/root_maxbytes
+
+ These files hold the maximum number of keys that root may have and the
+ maximum total number of bytes of data that root may have stored in those
+ keys.
+
+ (*) /proc/sys/kernel/keys/maxkeys
+ /proc/sys/kernel/keys/maxbytes
+
+ These files hold the maximum number of keys that each non-root user may
+ have and the maximum total number of bytes of data that each of those
+ users may have stored in their keys.
+
+Root may alter these by writing each new limit as a decimal number string to
+the appropriate file.
+
+
===============================
USERSPACE SYSTEM CALL INTERFACE
===============================
The assumed authoritative key is inherited across fork and exec.
+ (*) Get the LSM security context attached to a key.
+
+ long keyctl(KEYCTL_GET_SECURITY, key_serial_t key, char *buffer,
+ size_t buflen)
+
+ This function returns a string that represents the LSM security context
+ attached to a key in the buffer provided.
+
+ Unless there's an error, it always returns the amount of data it could
+ produce, even if that's too big for the buffer, but it won't copy more
+ than requested to userspace. If the buffer pointer is NULL then no copy
+ will take place.
+
+ A NUL character is included at the end of the string if the buffer is
+ sufficiently big. This is included in the returned count. If no LSM is
+ in force then an empty string will be returned.
+
+ A process must have view permission on the key for this function to be
+ successful.
+
+
+ (*) Install the calling process's session keyring on its parent.
+
+ long keyctl(KEYCTL_SESSION_TO_PARENT);
+
+ This functions attempts to install the calling process's session keyring
+ on to the calling process's parent, replacing the parent's current session
+ keyring.
+
+ The calling process must have the same ownership as its parent, the
+ keyring must have the same ownership as the calling process, the calling
+ process must have LINK permission on the keyring and the active LSM module
+ mustn't deny permission, otherwise error EPERM will be returned.
+
+ Error ENOMEM will be returned if there was insufficient memory to complete
+ the operation, otherwise 0 will be returned to indicate success.
+
+ The keyring will be replaced next time the parent process leaves the
+ kernel and resumes executing userspace.
+
+
===============
KERNEL SERVICES
===============
struct key *request_key(const struct key_type *type,
const char *description,
- const char *callout_string);
+ const char *callout_info);
This is used to request a key or keyring with a description that matches
the description specified according to the key type's match function. This
struct key *request_key_with_auxdata(const struct key_type *type,
const char *description,
- const char *callout_string,
+ const void *callout_info,
+ size_t callout_len,
void *aux);
This is identical to request_key(), except that the auxiliary data is
- passed to the key_type->request_key() op if it exists.
+ passed to the key_type->request_key() op if it exists, and the callout_info
+ is a blob of length callout_len, if given (the length may be 0).
(*) A key can be requested asynchronously by calling one of:
struct key *request_key_async(const struct key_type *type,
const char *description,
- const char *callout_string);
+ const void *callout_info,
+ size_t callout_len);
or:
struct key *request_key_async_with_auxdata(const struct key_type *type,
const char *description,
- const char *callout_string,
+ const char *callout_info,
+ size_t callout_len,
void *aux);
which are asynchronous equivalents of request_key() and
request_key_with_auxdata() respectively.
These two functions return with the key potentially still under
- construction. To wait for contruction completion, the following should be
+ construction. To wait for construction completion, the following should be
called:
int wait_for_key_construction(struct key *key, bool intr);
In this case, the program isn't required to actually attach the key to a ring;
the rings are provided for reference.
+
+
+==================
+GARBAGE COLLECTION
+==================
+
+Dead keys (for which the type has been removed) will be automatically unlinked
+from those keyrings that point to them and deleted as soon as possible by a
+background garbage collector.
+
+Similarly, revoked and expired keys will be garbage collected, but only after a
+certain amount of time has passed. This time is set as a number of seconds in:
+
+ /proc/sys/kernel/keys/gc_delay