1 files changed, 67 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/cgroups/devices.txt b/Documentation/cgroups/devices.txt
index 16624a7f8222..3c1095ca02ea 100644
--- a/Documentation/cgroups/devices.txt
+++ b/Documentation/cgroups/devices.txt
@@ -13,9 +13,7 @@ either an integer or * for all.  Access is a composition of r
 The root device cgroup starts with rwm to 'all'.  A child device
 cgroup gets a copy of the parent.  Administrators can then remove
 devices from the whitelist or add new entries.  A child cgroup can
-never receive a device access which is denied by its parent.  However
-when a device access is removed from a parent it will not also be
-removed from the child(ren).
+never receive a device access which is denied by its parent.
 
 2. User Interface
 
@@ -50,3 +48,69 @@ task to a new cgroup.  (Again we'll probably want to change that).
 
 A cgroup may not be granted more permissions than the cgroup's
 parent has.
+
+4. Hierarchy
+
+device cgroups maintain hierarchy by making sure a cgroup never has more
+access permissions than its parent.  Every time an entry is written to
+a cgroup's devices.deny file, all its children will have that entry removed
+from their whitelist and all the locally set whitelist entries will be
+re-evaluated.  In case one of the locally set whitelist entries would provide
+more access than the cgroup's parent, it'll be removed from the whitelist.
+
+Example:
+      A
+     / \
+        B
+
+    group        behavior       exceptions
+    A            allow          "b 8:* rwm", "c 116:1 rw"
+    B            deny           "c 1:3 rwm", "c 116:2 rwm", "b 3:* rwm"
+
+If a device is denied in group A:
+        # echo "c 116:* r" > A/devices.deny
+it'll propagate down and after revalidating B's entries, the whitelist entry
+"c 116:2 rwm" will be removed:
+
+    group        whitelist entries                        denied devices
+    A            all                                      "b 8:* rwm", "c 116:* rw"
+    B            "c 1:3 rwm", "b 3:* rwm"                 all the rest
+
+In case parent's exceptions change and local exceptions are not allowed
+anymore, they'll be deleted.
+
+Notice that new whitelist entries will not be propagated:
+      A
+     / \
+        B
+
+    group        whitelist entries                        denied devices
+    A            "c 1:3 rwm", "c 1:5 r"                   all the rest
+    B            "c 1:3 rwm", "c 1:5 r"                   all the rest
+
+when adding "c *:3 rwm":
+        # echo "c *:3 rwm" >A/devices.allow
+
+the result:
+    group        whitelist entries                        denied devices
+    A            "c *:3 rwm", "c 1:5 r"                   all the rest
+    B            "c 1:3 rwm", "c 1:5 r"                   all the rest
+
+but now it'll be possible to add new entries to B:
+        # echo "c 2:3 rwm" >B/devices.allow
+        # echo "c 50:3 r" >B/devices.allow
+or even
+        # echo "c *:3 rwm" >B/devices.allow
+
+Allowing or denying all by writing 'a' to devices.allow or devices.deny will
+not be possible once the device cgroups has children.
+
+4.1 Hierarchy (internal implementation)
+
+device cgroups is implemented internally using a behavior (ALLOW, DENY) and a
+list of exceptions.  The internal state is controlled using the same user
+interface to preserve compatibility with the previous whitelist-only
+implementation.  Removal or addition of exceptions that will reduce the access
+to devices will be propagated down the hierarchy.
+For every propagated exception, the effective rules will be re-evaluated based
+on current parent's access rules.