Re: [PATCH] sysctl: terminate strings also on \r

From: Geert Uytterhoeven
Date: Mon Oct 27 2014 - 06:11:58 EST


On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 10:56 AM, Pavel Machek <pavel@xxxxxx> wrote:
> On Wed 2014-10-22 16:43:10, Kees Cook wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 4:26 PM, Andrew Morton
>> <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> > On Tue, 21 Oct 2014 13:21:37 -0700 Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >
>> >> From: Paul Wise <pabs3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> >>
>> >> This partially mitigates a common strategy used by attackers for hiding
>> >> the full contents of strings in procfs from naive sysadmins who use cat,
>> >> more or sysctl to inspect the contents of strings in procfs.
>> >>
>> >> ...
>> >>
>> >> --- a/kernel/sysctl.c
>> >> +++ b/kernel/sysctl.c
>> >> @@ -1739,7 +1739,7 @@ static int _proc_do_string(char *data, int maxlen, int write,
>> >> while ((p - buffer) < *lenp && len < maxlen - 1) {
>> >> if (get_user(c, p++))
>> >> return -EFAULT;
>> >> - if (c == 0 || c == '\n')
>> >> + if (c == 0 || c == '\n' || c == '\r')
>> >> break;
>> >> data[len++] = c;
>> >> }
>> >
>> > There are no valid uses of \r in a procfs write?
>>
>> I struggle to imagine one; everything I found that uses proc_dostring
>> seems to be names, paths, and commands.
>
> Well, filename can contain \r, right?

Even \n. AFAIK, the only thing a filename cannot contain is the nul character
and a forward slash, as that's used to separate path components (so slash
is valid for a path name).

Still, we can hide stuff using ANSI ESC sequences, and e.g. backspaces,
right?

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
-- Linus Torvalds
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/