[PATCH] dma-buf: document fd flags and O_CLOEXEC requirement

From: Rob Clark
Date: Mon Mar 19 2012 - 17:42:52 EST


From: Rob Clark <rob@xxxxxx>

Otherwise subsystems will get this wrong and end up with a second
export ioctl with the flag and O_CLOEXEC support added.

Signed-off-by: Rob Clark <rob@xxxxxx>
Reviewed-by: Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter@xxxxxxxx>
---
Updated version of Daniel's original documentation patch with (hopefully)
improved wording, and a better description of the motivation.

Documentation/dma-buf-sharing.txt | 18 ++++++++++++++++++
1 files changed, 18 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/dma-buf-sharing.txt b/Documentation/dma-buf-sharing.txt
index 225f96d..3b51134 100644
--- a/Documentation/dma-buf-sharing.txt
+++ b/Documentation/dma-buf-sharing.txt
@@ -223,6 +223,24 @@ Miscellaneous notes:
- Any exporters or users of the dma-buf buffer sharing framework must have
a 'select DMA_SHARED_BUFFER' in their respective Kconfigs.

+- In order to avoid fd leaks on exec, the FD_CLOEXEC flag must be set
+ on the file descriptor. This is not just a resource leak, but a
+ potential security hole. It could give the newly exec'd application
+ access to buffers, via the leaked fd, to which it should otherwise
+ not be permitted access.
+
+ The problem with doing this via a separate fcntl() call, versus doing it
+ atomically when the fd is created, is that this is inherently racy in a
+ multi-threaded app[3]. The issue is made worse when it is library code
+ opening/creating the file descriptor, as the application may not even be
+ aware of the fd's.
+
+ To avoid this problem, userspace must have a way to request O_CLOEXEC
+ flag be set when the dma-buf fd is created. So any API provided by
+ the exporting driver to create a dmabuf fd must provide a way to let
+ userspace control setting of O_CLOEXEC flag passed in to dma_buf_fd().
+
References:
[1] struct dma_buf_ops in include/linux/dma-buf.h
[2] All interfaces mentioned above defined in include/linux/dma-buf.h
+[3] https://lwn.net/Articles/236486/
--
1.7.5.4

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