hw/9pfs: man page for proxy helper

Signed-off-by: M. Mohan Kumar <mohan@in.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Aneesh Kumar K.V <aneesh.kumar@linux.vnet.ibm.com>

1 files changed, 59 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/fsdev/virtfs-proxy-helper.texi b/fsdev/virtfs-proxy-helper.texi
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+@example
+@c man begin SYNOPSIS
+usage: virtfs-proxy-helper options
+@c man end
+@end example
+
+@c man begin DESCRIPTION
+@table @description
+Pass-through security model in QEMU 9p server needs root privilege to do
+few file operations (like chown, chmod to any mode/uid:gid).  There are two
+issues in pass-through security model
+
+1) TOCTTOU vulnerability: Following symbolic links in the server could
+provide access to files beyond 9p export path.
+
+2) Running QEMU with root privilege could be a security issue.
+
+To overcome above issues, following approach is used: A new filesytem
+type 'proxy' is introduced. Proxy FS uses chroot + socket combination
+for securing the vulnerability known with following symbolic links.
+Intention of adding a new filesystem type is to allow qemu to run
+in non-root mode, but doing privileged operations using socket IO.
+
+Proxy helper(a stand alone binary part of qemu) is invoked with
+root privileges. Proxy helper chroots into 9p export path and creates
+a socket pair or a named socket based on the command line parameter.
+Qemu and proxy helper communicate using this socket. QEMU proxy fs
+driver sends filesystem request to proxy helper and receives the
+response from it.
+
+Proxy helper is designed so that it can drop the root privilege with
+retaining capbilities needed for doing filesystem operations only.
+
+@end table
+@c man end
+
+@c man begin OPTIONS
+The following options are supported:
+@table @option
+@item -h
+@findex -h
+Display help and exit
+@item -p|--path path
+Path to export for proxy filesystem driver
+@item -f|--fd socket-id
+Use given file descriptor as socket descriptor for communicating with
+qemu proxy fs drier. Usually a helper like libvirt will create
+socketpair and pass one of the fds as parameter to -f|--fd
+@item -n|--nodaemon
+Run as a normal program. By default program will run in daemon mode
+@end table
+@c man end
+
+@setfilename virtfs-proxy-helper
+@settitle QEMU 9p virtfs proxy filesystem helper
+
+@c man begin AUTHOR
+M. Mohan Kumar
+@c man end