Re: [PATCH] usercopy: Remove HARDENED_USERCOPY_PAGESPAN

From: Matthew Wilcox
Date: Sun May 12 2019 - 00:13:18 EST


On Sat, May 11, 2019 at 05:03:08PM -0700, Kees Cook wrote:
> On Fri, May 10, 2019 at 08:41:43PM -0400, Laura Abbott wrote:
> > On 5/10/19 3:43 PM, Kees Cook wrote:
> > > This feature continues to cause more problems than it solves[1]. Its
> > > intention was to check the bounds of page-allocator allocations by using
> > > __GFP_COMP, for which we would need to find all missing __GFP_COMP
> > > markings. This work has been on hold and there is an argument[2]
> > > that such markings are not even the correct signal for checking for
> > > same-allocation pages. Instead of depending on BROKEN, this just removes
> > > it entirely. It can be trivially reverted if/when a better solution for
> > > tracking page allocator sizes is found.
> > >
> > > [1] https://www.mail-archive.com/linux-crypto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/msg37479.html
> > > [2] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20190415022412.GA29714@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> > I agree the page spanning is broken but is it worth keeping the
> > checks against __rodata __bss etc.?
>
> They're all just white-listing later checks (except RODATA which is
> doing a cheap RO test which is redundant on any architecture with actual
> rodata...) so they don't have any value in staying without the rest of
> the page allocator logic.
>
> > > - /* Is the object wholly within one base page? */
> > > - if (likely(((unsigned long)ptr & (unsigned long)PAGE_MASK) ==
> > > - ((unsigned long)end & (unsigned long)PAGE_MASK)))
> > > - return;
> > > -
> > > - /* Allow if fully inside the same compound (__GFP_COMP) page. */
> > > - endpage = virt_to_head_page(end);
> > > - if (likely(endpage == page))
> > > - return;
>
> We _could_ keep the mixed CMA/reserved/neither check if we really wanted
> to, but that's such a corner case of a corner case, I'm not sure it's
> worth doing the virt_to_head_page() across the whole span to figure
> it out.

I'd delete that first check, because it's a subset of the second check,

/* Is the object wholly within a single (base or compound) page? */
endpage = virt_to_head_page(end);
if (likely(endpage == page))
return;

/*
* If the start and end are more than MAX_ORDER apart, they must
* be from separate allocations
*/
if (n >= (PAGE_SIZE << MAX_ORDER))
usercopy_abort("spans too many pages", NULL, to_user, 0, n);

/*
* If neither page is compound, we can't tell if the object is
* within a single allocation or not
*/
if (!PageCompound(page) && !PageCompound(endpage))
return;

> I really wish we had size of allocation reliably held somewhere. We'll
> need it for doing memory tagging of the page allocator too...

I think we'll need to store those allocations in a separate data structure
on the side. As far as the rest of the kernel is concerned, those struct
pages belong to them once the page allocator has given them.