Re: [PATCH 3/3] riscv: fix __user annotation for __copy_user()

[Atish Patra]

On 6/4/18 12:09 PM, Luc Van Oostenryck wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 04, 2018 at 11:46:50AM -0700, Atish Patra wrote:
> > On 6/1/18 8:22 AM, Luc Van Oostenryck wrote:
> > > __copy_user() is a function, written in assembly, used to copy
> > > memory between kernel & user space. As such its to & from args
> > > may both take a user pointer or a kernel pointer.
> > >
> > > However the prototype for this function declare these two args
> > > as 'void __user *', which is no more & no less correct than
> > > declaring them as 'void *'. In fact theer is no possible correct
> >
> > /s/theer/there
> >
> > > annotation for such a function.
> > >
> > > The problem is worked around here by declaring these args as
> > > unsigned long and casting them to the right type in each of
> > > two callers raw_copy_{to,from}_user() as some kind of cast would
> > > be needed anyway.
> > >
> > > Note: another solution, maybe cleaner but slightly more complex,
> > >         would be to declare two version of __copy_user,
> > >         either in the asm file or via an alias, each having already
> > >         the correct typing for raw_copy_{to,from}_user().
> >
> > I feel that would be a better solution as it is implemented similarly
> > in ARM as well.
> >
> > I am unable to understand how "unsigned long" is better than "void*".
> > x86 implementation has both arguments as void*. Can you please clarify ?
>
> "better" is quite relative and it must be understood that sparse
> allow to cast pointers o fany kinds to and from unsigned long
> without any warnings (while doing a cast between different address
> space will emit a warning unless you use '__force').

Got it.
> As I tried to explain here above, the fact that this function is
> declared as taking 2 __user pointers requires to use of casts
> (ugly casts with __force) to get over the __user. By declaring
> them as taking unsigned long, you still have to use casts but, IMO,
> it's cleaner

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

> Note: they're generic pointers/addresses anyway, they can't be
>        dereferenced anyway so unsigned is as good as a plain void*
>        or a void __user*
> Note: using unsigned long here, fundamentally to bypass the __user,
>        is the same as casting a const pointer back to a plain pointer
>        via an intermediate cast to unsigned long. People can argue
>        that's kinda cheating, and they would be right of course, but
>        using __force or declaring twice the function with two different
>        names and prototype is also a form of cheating.
> Note: if this would be my code, I would choose the solution with
>        two declarations.

I prefer that as well.

Regards,
Atish
> Best regards,
> -- Luc