Re: [PATCH 0/3] creds/cgroups/ns_proxy refcount_t conversions

From: Kees Cook
Date: Thu Mar 07 2019 - 12:43:43 EST


On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 3:05 AM Elena Reshetova
<elena.reshetova@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> I would like to reopen ages-old discussion on these conversions now.
> Eric had objections against them in past, namely on not providing enough
> security for reference counters (but we still argue it is better
> than overflowing atomic_t and resulting use-after-free).
> However now, refcount_t has been successfully used in kernel in many places,
> helped to detect bugs and mistakes in logic of refcounters.
> We have converted most of core kernel reference counters by now and these
> 3 are pretty core ones, so it would be really great to have them covered
> also.
>
> The patches are fully independent and can be cherry-picked and
> discussed separately. More information about each conversion in each patch
> separately.

These look good to me. Perhaps they can go via -mm, maybe with Eric
and/or Peter's ack/review? I'd really like to get these done so we can
get closer to finishing the refcount_t conversions...

Thanks!

-Kees

>
> Elena Reshetova (3):
> nsproxy: convert nsproxy.count to refcount_t
> groups: convert group_info.usage to refcount_t
> creds: convert cred.usage to refcount_t
>
> include/linux/cred.h | 15 +++++++-------
> include/linux/nsproxy.h | 6 +++---
> kernel/cred.c | 44 ++++++++++++++++++++---------------------
> kernel/groups.c | 2 +-
> kernel/nsproxy.c | 6 +++---
> net/sunrpc/auth.c | 2 +-
> 6 files changed, 38 insertions(+), 37 deletions(-)
>
> --
> 2.17.1
>


--
Kees Cook