Re: [PATCH 1/1] tracing, bpf: Implement function bpf_probe_write

From: Alexei Starovoitov
Date: Fri Jul 15 2016 - 01:43:19 EST


On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 01:31:57PM -0700, Sargun Dhillon wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, 13 Jul 2016, Alexei Starovoitov wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 03:36:11AM -0700, Sargun Dhillon wrote:
> >> Provides BPF programs, attached to kprobes a safe way to write to
> >> memory referenced by probes. This is done by making probe_kernel_write
> >> accessible to bpf functions via the bpf_probe_write helper.
> >
> > not quite :)
> >
> >> Signed-off-by: Sargun Dhillon <sargun@xxxxxxxxx>
> >> ---
> >> include/uapi/linux/bpf.h | 3 +++
> >> kernel/trace/bpf_trace.c | 20 ++++++++++++++++++++
> >> samples/bpf/bpf_helpers.h | 2 ++
> >> 3 files changed, 25 insertions(+)
> >>
> >> diff --git a/include/uapi/linux/bpf.h b/include/uapi/linux/bpf.h
> >> index 406459b..355b565 100644
> >> --- a/include/uapi/linux/bpf.h
> >> +++ b/include/uapi/linux/bpf.h
> >> @@ -313,6 +313,9 @@ enum bpf_func_id {
> >> */
> >> BPF_FUNC_skb_get_tunnel_opt,
> >> BPF_FUNC_skb_set_tunnel_opt,
> >> +
> >> + BPF_FUNC_probe_write, /* int bpf_probe_write(void *dst, void *src,
> >> int size) */
> >> +
> >
> > the patch is against some old kernel.
> > Please always make the patch against net-next tree and cc netdev list.
> >
> Sorry, I did this against Linus's tree, not net-next. Will fix.
>
> >> +static u64 bpf_probe_write(u64 r1, u64 r2, u64 r3, u64 r4, u64 r5)
> >> +{
> >> + void *dst = (void *) (long) r1;
> >> + void *unsafe_ptr = (void *) (long) r2;
> >> + int size = (int) r3;
> >> +
> >> + return probe_kernel_write(dst, unsafe_ptr, size);
> >> +}
> >
> > the patch is whitepsace mangled. Please see Documentation/networking/netdev-FAQ.txt
> Also will fix.
>
> >
> > the main issue though that we cannot simply allow bpf to do probe_write,
> > since it may crash the kernel.
> > What might be ok is to allow writing into memory of current
> > user space process only. This way bpf prog will keep kernel safety guarantees,
> > yet it will be able to modify user process memory when necessary.
> > Since bpf+tracing is root only, it doesn't pose security risk.
> >
> >
>
> Doesn't probe_write prevent you from writing to protected memory and
> generate an EFAULT? Or are you worried about the situation where a bpf
> program writes to some other chunk of kernel memory, or writes bad data
> to said kernel memory?
>
> I guess when I meant "safe" -- it's safer than allowing arbitrary memcpy.
> I don't see a good way to ensure safety otherwise as we don't know
> which registers point to memory that it's reasonable for probes to
> manipulate. It's not like skb_store_bytes where we can check the pointer
> going in is the same pointer that's referenced, and with a super
> restricted datatype.

exactly. probe_write can write anywhere in the kernel and that
will cause crashes. If we allow that bpf becomes no different than
kernel module.

> Perhaps, it would be a good idea to describe an example where I used this:
> #include <uapi/linux/ptrace.h>
> #include <net/sock.h>
> #include <bcc/proto.h>
>
>
> int trace_inet_stream_connect(struct pt_regs *ctx)
> {
> if (!PT_REGS_PARM2(ctx)) {
> return 0;
> }
> struct sockaddr uaddr = {};
> struct sockaddr_in *addr_in;
> bpf_probe_read(&uaddr, sizeof(struct sockaddr), (void *)PT_REGS_PARM2(ctx));
> if (uaddr.sa_family == AF_INET) {
> // Simple cast causes LLVM weirdness
> addr_in = &uaddr;
> char fmt[] = "Connecting on port: %d\n";
> bpf_trace_printk(fmt, sizeof(fmt), ntohs(addr_in->sin_port));
> if (ntohs(addr_in->sin_port) == 80) {
> addr_in->sin_port = htons(443);
> bpf_probe_write((void *)PT_REGS_PARM2(ctx), &uaddr, sizeof(uaddr));
> }
> }
> return 0;
> };
>
> There are two reasons I want to do this:
> 1) Debugging - sometimes, it makes sense to divert a program's syscalls in
> order to allow for better debugging
> 2) Network Functions - I wrote a load balancer which intercepts
> inet_stream_connect & tcp_set_state. We can manipulate the destination
> address as neccessary at connect time. This also has the nice side effect
> that getpeername() returns the real IP that a server is connected to, and
> the performance is far better than doing "network load balancing"
>
> (I realize this is a total hack, better approaches would be appreciated)

nice. interesting idea.
Have you considered ld_preload hack to do port rewrite?

> If we allowed manipulation of the current task's user memory by exposing
> copy_to_user, that could also work if I attach the probe to sys_connect,
> I could overwrite the address there before it gets copied into
> kernel space, but that could lead to its own weirdness.

we cannot simply call copy_to_user from the bpf either,
but yeah, something semantically equivalent to copy_to_user should
solve your port rewriting case, right?
Could you explain little bit more on 'syscall divert' ideas?