Re: For review: seccomp_user_notif(2) manual page

From: Jann Horn
Date: Thu Oct 15 2020 - 16:35:01 EST


On Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 1:24 PM Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)
<mtk.manpages@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 9/30/20 5:53 PM, Jann Horn wrote:
> > On Wed, Sep 30, 2020 at 1:07 PM Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)
> > <mtk.manpages@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> I knew it would be a big ask, but below is kind of the manual page
> >> I was hoping you might write [1] for the seccomp user-space notification
> >> mechanism. Since you didn't (and because 5.9 adds various new pieces
> >> such as SECCOMP_ADDFD_FLAG_SETFD and SECCOMP_IOCTL_NOTIF_ADDFD
> >> that also will need documenting [2]), I did :-). But of course I may
> >> have made mistakes...
[...]
> >> 3. The supervisor process will receive notification events on the
> >> listening file descriptor. These events are returned as
> >> structures of type seccomp_notif. Because this structure and
> >> its size may evolve over kernel versions, the supervisor must
> >> first determine the size of this structure using the sec‐
> >> comp(2) SECCOMP_GET_NOTIF_SIZES operation, which returns a
> >> structure of type seccomp_notif_sizes. The supervisor allo‐
> >> cates a buffer of size seccomp_notif_sizes.seccomp_notif bytes
> >> to receive notification events. In addition,the supervisor
> >> allocates another buffer of size seccomp_notif_sizes.sec‐
> >> comp_notif_resp bytes for the response (a struct sec‐
> >> comp_notif_resp structure) that it will provide to the kernel
> >> (and thus the target process).
> >>
> >> 4. The target process then performs its workload, which includes
> >> system calls that will be controlled by the seccomp filter.
> >> Whenever one of these system calls causes the filter to return
> >> the SECCOMP_RET_USER_NOTIF action value, the kernel does not
> >> execute the system call; instead, execution of the target
> >> process is temporarily blocked inside the kernel and a notifi‐
> >
> > where "blocked" refers to the interruptible, restartable kind - if the
> > child receives a signal with an SA_RESTART signal handler in the
> > meantime, it'll leave the syscall, go through the signal handler, then
> > restart the syscall again and send the same request to the supervisor
> > again. so the supervisor may see duplicate syscalls.
>
> So, I partially demonstrated what you describe here, for two example
> system calls (epoll_wait() and pause()). But I could not exactly
> demonstrate things as I understand you to be describing them. (So,
> I'm not sure whether I have not understood you correctly, or
> if things are not exactly as you describe them.)
>
> Here's a scenario (A) that I tested:
>
> 1. Target installs seccomp filters for a blocking syscall
> (epoll_wait() or pause(), both of which should never restart,
> regardless of SA_RESTART)
> 2. Target installs SIGINT handler with SA_RESTART
> 3. Supervisor is sleeping (i.e., is not blocked in
> SECCOMP_IOCTL_NOTIF_RECV operation).
> 4. Target makes a blocking system call (epoll_wait() or pause()).
> 5. SIGINT gets delivered to target; handler gets called;
> ***and syscall gets restarted by the kernel***
>
> That last should never happen, of course, and is a result of the
> combination of both the user-notify filter and the SA_RESTART flag.
> If one or other is not present, then the system call is not
> restarted.
>
> So, as you note below, the UAPI gets broken a little.
>
> However, from your description above I had understood that
> something like the following scenario (B) could occur:
>
> 1. Target installs seccomp filters for a blocking syscall
> (epoll_wait() or pause(), both of which should never restart,
> regardless of SA_RESTART)
> 2. Target installs SIGINT handler with SA_RESTART
> 3. Supervisor performs SECCOMP_IOCTL_NOTIF_RECV operation (which
> blocks).
> 4. Target makes a blocking system call (epoll_wait() or pause()).
> 5. Supervisor gets seccomp user-space notification (i.e.,
> SECCOMP_IOCTL_NOTIF_RECV ioctl() returns
> 6. SIGINT gets delivered to target; handler gets called;
> and syscall gets restarted by the kernel
> 7. Supervisor performs another SECCOMP_IOCTL_NOTIF_RECV operation
> which gets another notification for the restarted system call.
>
> However, I don't observe such behavior. In step 6, the syscall
> does not get restarted by the kernel, but instead returns -1/EINTR.
> Perhaps I have misconstructed my experiment in the second case, or
> perhaps I've misunderstood what you meant, or is it possibly the
> case that things are not quite as you said?

user@vm:~/test/seccomp-notify-interrupt$ cat seccomp-notify-interrupt.c
#define _GNU_SOURCE
#include <stdio.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <err.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sched.h>
#include <stddef.h>
#include <limits.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>
#include <sys/syscall.h>
#include <sys/prctl.h>
#include <linux/seccomp.h>
#include <linux/filter.h>
#include <linux/futex.h>

struct {
int seccomp_fd;
} *shared;

static void handle_signal(int sig, siginfo_t *info, void *uctx) {
printf("signal handler invoked\n");
}

int main(void) {
setbuf(stdout, NULL);

shared = mmap(NULL, 0x1000, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE,
MAP_ANONYMOUS|MAP_SHARED, -1, 0);
if (shared == MAP_FAILED)
err(1, "mmap");
shared->seccomp_fd = -1;

/* glibc's clone() wrapper doesn't support fork()-style usage */
pid_t child = syscall(__NR_clone, CLONE_FILES|SIGCHLD,
NULL, NULL, NULL, 0);
if (child == -1) err(1, "clone");
if (child == 0) {
/* don't outlive the parent */
prctl(PR_SET_PDEATHSIG, SIGKILL);
if (getppid() == 1) exit(0);

prctl(PR_SET_NO_NEW_PRIVS, 1, 0, 0, 0);
struct sock_filter insns[] = {
BPF_STMT(BPF_LD|BPF_W|BPF_ABS, offsetof(struct seccomp_data, nr)),
BPF_JUMP(BPF_JMP|BPF_JEQ|BPF_K, __NR_pause, 0, 1),
BPF_STMT(BPF_RET|BPF_K, SECCOMP_RET_USER_NOTIF),
BPF_STMT(BPF_RET|BPF_K, SECCOMP_RET_ALLOW)
};
struct sock_fprog prog = {
.len = sizeof(insns)/sizeof(insns[0]),
.filter = insns
};
int seccomp_ret = syscall(__NR_seccomp, SECCOMP_SET_MODE_FILTER,
SECCOMP_FILTER_FLAG_NEW_LISTENER, &prog);
if (seccomp_ret < 0)
err(1, "install");
printf("installed seccomp: fd %d\n", seccomp_ret);

__atomic_store(&shared->seccomp_fd, &seccomp_ret, __ATOMIC_RELEASE);
int futex_ret = syscall(__NR_futex, &shared->seccomp_fd, FUTEX_WAKE,
INT_MAX, NULL, NULL, 0);
printf("woke %d waiters\n", futex_ret);

struct sigaction act = {
.sa_sigaction = handle_signal,
.sa_flags = SA_RESTART|SA_SIGINFO
};
if (sigaction(SIGUSR1, &act, NULL))
err(1, "sigaction");

pause();
perror("pause returned");
exit(0);
}

int futex_ret = syscall(__NR_futex, &shared->seccomp_fd, FUTEX_WAIT,
-1, NULL, NULL, 0);
if (futex_ret == -1 && errno != EAGAIN)
err(1, "futex wait");
int fd = __atomic_load_n(&shared->seccomp_fd, __ATOMIC_ACQUIRE);
printf("child installed seccomp fd %d\n", fd);

sleep(1);
printf("going to send SIGUSR1...\n");
kill(child, SIGUSR1);
sleep(1);

exit(0);
}
user@vm:~/test/seccomp-notify-interrupt$ gcc -o
seccomp-notify-interrupt seccomp-notify-interrupt.c -Wall
user@vm:~/test/seccomp-notify-interrupt$ strace -f
./seccomp-notify-interrupt >/dev/null
execve("./seccomp-notify-interrupt", ["./seccomp-notify-interrupt"],
0x7ffcb31a0d08 /* 42 vars */) = 0
brk(NULL) = 0x5565864b2000
access("/etc/ld.so.preload", R_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
openat(AT_FDCWD, "/etc/ld.so.cache", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 3
fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=89296, ...}) = 0
mmap(NULL, 89296, PROT_READ, MAP_PRIVATE, 3, 0) = 0x7f7e688e7000
close(3) = 0
openat(AT_FDCWD, "/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 3
read(3, "\177ELF\2\1\1\3\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\3\0>\0\1\0\0\0\260A\2\0\0\0\0\0"...,
832) = 832
fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0755, st_size=1824496, ...}) = 0
mmap(NULL, 8192, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1,
0) = 0x7f7e688e5000
mmap(NULL, 1837056, PROT_READ, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_DENYWRITE, 3, 0) = 0x7f7e68724000
mprotect(0x7f7e68746000, 1658880, PROT_NONE) = 0
mmap(0x7f7e68746000, 1343488, PROT_READ|PROT_EXEC,
MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_FIXED|MAP_DENYWRITE, 3, 0x22000) = 0x7f7e68746000
mmap(0x7f7e6888e000, 311296, PROT_READ,
MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_FIXED|MAP_DENYWRITE, 3, 0x16a000) = 0x7f7e6888e000
mmap(0x7f7e688db000, 24576, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE,
MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_FIXED|MAP_DENYWRITE, 3, 0x1b6000) = 0x7f7e688db000
mmap(0x7f7e688e1000, 14336, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE,
MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_FIXED|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x7f7e688e1000
close(3) = 0
arch_prctl(ARCH_SET_FS, 0x7f7e688e6500) = 0
mprotect(0x7f7e688db000, 16384, PROT_READ) = 0
mprotect(0x556585183000, 4096, PROT_READ) = 0
mprotect(0x7f7e68924000, 4096, PROT_READ) = 0
munmap(0x7f7e688e7000, 89296) = 0
mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1,
0) = 0x7f7e688fc000
clone(child_stack=NULL, flags=CLONE_FILES|SIGCHLD) = 2558
futex(0x7f7e688fc000, FUTEX_WAIT, 4294967295, NULLstrace: Process 2558 attached
<unfinished ...>
[pid 2558] prctl(PR_SET_PDEATHSIG, SIGKILL) = 0
[pid 2558] getppid() = 2557
[pid 2558] prctl(PR_SET_NO_NEW_PRIVS, 1, 0, 0, 0) = 0
[pid 2558] seccomp(SECCOMP_SET_MODE_FILTER, 0x8 /*
SECCOMP_FILTER_FLAG_??? */, {len=4, filter=0x7ffdf7cc9b50}) = 3
[pid 2558] write(1, "installed seccomp: fd 3\n", 24) = 24
[pid 2558] futex(0x7f7e688fc000, FUTEX_WAKE, 2147483647 <unfinished ...>
[pid 2557] <... futex resumed> ) = 0
[pid 2558] <... futex resumed> ) = 1
[pid 2558] write(1, "woke 1 waiters\n", 15) = 15
[pid 2557] write(1, "child installed seccomp fd 3\n", 29) = 29
[pid 2558] rt_sigaction(SIGUSR1, {sa_handler=0x556585181215,
sa_mask=[], sa_flags=SA_RESTORER|SA_RESTART|SA_SIGINFO,
sa_restorer=0x7f7e6875b840}, NULL, 8) = 0
[pid 2557] nanosleep({tv_sec=1, tv_nsec=0}, <unfinished ...>
[pid 2558] pause( <unfinished ...>
[pid 2557] <... nanosleep resumed> 0x7ffdf7cc9b10) = 0
[pid 2557] write(1, "going to send SIGUSR1...", 24) = 24
[pid 2557] write(1, "\n", 1) = 1
[pid 2557] kill(2558, SIGUSR1) = 0
[pid 2557] nanosleep({tv_sec=1, tv_nsec=0}, <unfinished ...>
[pid 2558] <... pause resumed> ) = ? ERESTARTSYS (To be
restarted if SA_RESTART is set)
[pid 2558] --- SIGUSR1 {si_signo=SIGUSR1, si_code=SI_USER,
si_pid=2557, si_uid=1000} ---
[pid 2558] write(1, "signal handler invoked", 22) = 22
[pid 2558] write(1, "\n", 1) = 1
[pid 2558] rt_sigreturn({mask=[]}) = 34
[pid 2558] pause( <unfinished ...>
[pid 2557] <... nanosleep resumed> 0x7ffdf7cc9b10) = 0
[pid 2557] exit_group(0) = ?
[pid 2557] +++ exited with 0 +++
<... pause resumed>) = ?
+++ killed by SIGKILL +++
user@vm:~/test/seccomp-notify-interrupt$


[...]
> >> event is available.
> >
> > Maybe we should note here that you can use the multi-fd-polling APIs
> > (select/poll/epoll) instead, and that if the notification goes away
> > before you call SECCOMP_IOCTL_NOTIF_RECV, the ioctl will return
> > -ENOENT instead of blocking, and therefore as long as nobody else
> > reads from the same fd, you can assume that after the fd reports as
> > readable, you can call SECCOMP_IOCTL_NOTIF_RECV once without blocking.
>
> I'd rather not add this info in the overview section, which is
> already longer than I would like. But I did add some details
> in NOTES:
>
> [[
> The file descriptor returned when seccomp(2) is employed with the
> SECCOMP_FILTER_FLAG_NEW_LISTENER flag can be monitored using
> poll(2), epoll(7), and select(2). When a notification is pending,
> these interfaces indicate that the file descriptor is readable.
> Following such an indication, a subsequent SEC‐
> COMP_IOCTL_NOTIF_RECV ioctl(2) will not block, returning either
> information about a notification or else failing with the error
> EINTR if the target process has been killed by a signal or its
> system call has been interrupted by a signal handler.
> ]]
>
> Okay?

Sounds good.

[...]
> >> bilities to perform the mount operation.
> >>
> >> 8. The supervisor then sends a response to the notification. The
> >> information in this response is used by the kernel to con‐
> >> struct a return value for the target process's system call and
> >> provide a value that will be assigned to the errno variable of
> >> the target process.
> >>
> >> The response is sent using the SECCOMP_IOCTL_NOTIF_RECV
> >> ioctl(2) operation, which is used to transmit a sec‐
> >> comp_notif_resp structure to the kernel. This structure
> >> includes a cookie value that the supervisor obtained in the
> >> seccomp_notif structure returned by the SEC‐
> >> COMP_IOCTL_NOTIF_RECV operation. This cookie value allows the
> >> kernel to associate the response with the target process.
> >
> > (unless if the target thread entered a signal handler or was killed in
> > the meantime)
>
> Yes, but I think I have this adequately covered in the errors described
> later in the page for SECCOMP_IOCTL_NOTIF_RECV. (I have now added the
> target-process-terminated case to the orror text.)
>
> ENOENT The blocked system call in the target has been
> interrupted by a signal handler or the target
> process has terminated.
>
> Is that sufficient?

Ah, right.

[...]
> >> ENOENT The target process was killed by a signal as the
> >> notification information was being generated.
> >
> > Not just killed, interruption with a signal handler has the same effect.
>
> Ah yes! Thanks. I added that as well.
>
> [[
> ENOENT The target thread was killed by a signal as the
> notification information was being generated, or the
> target's (blocked) system call was interrupted by a
> signal handler.
> ]]
>
> Okay?

Yeah, sounds good.

[...]
> >> In the above scenario, the risk is that the supervisor may
> >> try to access the memory of a process other than the tar‐
> >> get. This race can be avoided by following the call to
> >> open with a SECCOMP_IOCTL_NOTIF_ID_VALID operation to ver‐
> >> ify that the process that generated the notification is
> >> still alive. (Note that if the target process subse‐
> >> quently terminates, its PID won't be reused because there
> >
> > That's wrong, the PID can be reused, but the /proc/$pid directory is
> > internally not associated with the numeric PID, but, conceptually
> > speaking, with a specific incarnation of the PID, or something like
> > that. (Actually, it is associated with the "struct pid", which is not
> > reused, instead of the numeric PID.)
>
> Thanks. I simplified the last sentence of the paragraph:
>
> In the above scenario, the risk is that the supervisor may
> try to access the memory of a process other than the tar‐
> get. This race can be avoided by following the call to
> open(2) with a SECCOMP_IOCTL_NOTIF_ID_VALID operation to
> verify that the process that generated the notification is
> still alive. (Note that if the target terminates after the
> latter step, a subsequent read(2) from the file descriptor
> will return 0, indicating end of file.)
>
> I think that's probably enough detail.

Maybe make that "may return 0" instead of "will return 0" - reading
from /proc/$pid/mem can only return 0 in the following cases AFAICS:

1. task->mm was already gone at open() time
2. mm->mm_users has dropped to zero (the mm only has lazytlb users;
page tables and VMAs are being blown away or have been blown away)
3. the syscall was called with length 0

When a process has gone away, normally mm->mm_users will drop to zero,
but someone else could theoretically still be holding a reference to
the mm (e.g. someone else in the middle of accessing /proc/$pid/mem).
(Such references should normally not be very long-lived though.)

Additionally, in the unlikely case that the OOM killer just chomped
through the page tables of the target process, I think the read will
return -EIO (same error as if the address was simply unmapped) if the
address is within a non-shared mapping. (Maybe that's something procfs
could do better...)

[...]
> >> NOTES
> >> The file descriptor returned when seccomp(2) is employed with the
> >> SECCOMP_FILTER_FLAG_NEW_LISTENER flag can be monitored using
> >> poll(2), epoll(7), and select(2). When a notification is pend‐
> >> ing, these interfaces indicate that the file descriptor is read‐
> >> able.
> >
> > We should probably also point out somewhere that, as
> > include/uapi/linux/seccomp.h says:
> >
> > * Similar precautions should be applied when stacking SECCOMP_RET_USER_NOTIF
> > * or SECCOMP_RET_TRACE. For SECCOMP_RET_USER_NOTIF filters acting on the
> > * same syscall, the most recently added filter takes precedence. This means
> > * that the new SECCOMP_RET_USER_NOTIF filter can override any
> > * SECCOMP_IOCTL_NOTIF_SEND from earlier filters, essentially allowing all
>
> My takeaway from Chritian's comments is that this comment in the kernel
> source is partially wrong, since it is not possible to install multiple
> filters with SECCOMP_RET_USER_NOTIF, right?

Yeah. (Well, AFAICS technically, you can add more filters that return
SECCOMP_RET_USER_NOTIF, but when a filter returns that without having
a notifier fd attached, seccomp blocks the syscall with -ENOSYS; it
won't use the notifier fd attached to a different filter in the
chain.)

> > * such filtered syscalls to be executed by sending the response
> > * SECCOMP_USER_NOTIF_FLAG_CONTINUE. Note that SECCOMP_RET_TRACE can equally
> > * be overriden by SECCOMP_USER_NOTIF_FLAG_CONTINUE.
> >
> > In other words, from a security perspective, you must assume that the
> > target process can bypass any SECCOMP_RET_USER_NOTIF (or
> > SECCOMP_RET_TRACE) filters unless it is completely prohibited from
> > calling seccomp().
>
> Drawing on text from Chrstian's comment in seccomp.h and Kees's mail,
> I added the following in NOTES:
>
> Design goals; use of SECCOMP_USER_NOTIF_FLAG_CONTINUE
> The intent of the user-space notification feature is to allow sys‐
> tem calls to be performed on behalf of the target. The target's
> system call should either be handled by the supervisor or allowed
> to continue normally in the kernel (where standard security poli‐
> cies will be applied).
>
> Note well: this mechanism must not be used to make security policy
> decisions about the system call, which would be inherently race-
> prone for reasons described next.
>
> The SECCOMP_USER_NOTIF_FLAG_CONTINUE flag must be used with cau‐
> tion. If set by the supervisor, the target's system call will
> continue. However, there is a time-of-check, time-of-use race
> here, since an attacker could exploit the interval of time where
> the target is blocked waiting on the "continue" response to do
> things such as rewriting the system call arguments.
>
> Note furthermore that a user-space notifier can be bypassed if the
> existing filters allow the use of seccomp(2) or prctl(2) to
> install a filter that returns an action value with a higher prece‐
> dence than SECCOMP_RET_USER_NOTIF (see seccomp(2)).
>
> It should thus be absolutely clear that the seccomp user-space
> notification mechanism can not be used to implement a security
> policy! It should only ever be used in scenarios where a more
> privileged process supervises the system calls of a lesser privi‐
> leged target to get around kernel-enforced security restrictions
> when the supervisor deems this safe. In other words, in order to
> continue a system call, the supervisor should be sure that another
> security mechanism or the kernel itself will sufficiently block
> the system call if its arguments are rewritten to something
> unsafe.
>
> Seem okay?

Yeah, sounds good.

[...]
> >> if (s == 0) {
> >> fprintf(stderr, "\tS: read() of /proc/PID/mem "
> >> "returned 0 (EOF)\n");
> >> exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
> >> }
> >>
> >> if (close(procMemFd) == -1)
> >> errExit("close-/proc/PID/mem");
> >
> > We should probably make sure here that the value we read is actually
> > NUL-terminated?
>
> So, I was curious about that point also. But, (why) are we not
> guaranteed that it will be NUL-terminated?

Because it's random memory filled by another process, which we don't
necessarily trust. While seccomp notifiers aren't usable for applying
*extra* security restrictions, the supervisor will still often be more
privileged than the supervised process.

[...]
> >> /* Discover the sizes of the structures that are used to receive
> >> notifications and send notification responses, and allocate
> >> buffers of those sizes. */
> >>
> >> if (seccomp(SECCOMP_GET_NOTIF_SIZES, 0, &sizes) == -1)
> >> errExit("\tS: seccomp-SECCOMP_GET_NOTIF_SIZES");
> >>
> >> struct seccomp_notif *req = malloc(sizes.seccomp_notif);
> >> if (req == NULL)
> >> errExit("\tS: malloc");
> >>
> >> struct seccomp_notif_resp *resp = malloc(sizes.seccomp_notif_resp);
> >
> > This should probably do something like max(sizes.seccomp_notif_resp,
> > sizeof(struct seccomp_notif_resp)) in case the program was built
> > against new UAPI headers that make struct seccomp_notif_resp big, but
> > is running under an old kernel where that struct is still smaller?
>
> I'm confused. Why? I mean, if the running kernel says that it expects
> a buffer of a certain size, and we allocate a buffer of that size,
> what's the problem?

Because in userspace, we cast the result of malloc() to a "struct
seccomp_notif_resp *". If the kernel tells us that it expects a size
smaller than sizeof(struct seccomp_notif_resp), then we end up with a
pointer to a struct that consists partly of allocated memory, partly
of out-of-bounds memory, which is generally a bad idea - I'm not sure
whether the C standard permits that. And if userspace then e.g.
decides to access some member of that struct that is beyond what the
kernel thinks is the struct size, we get actual OOB memory accesses.