[PATCH] arm: ptrace: fix syscall modification under PTRACE_O_TRACESECCOMP

Will Deacon will.deacon at arm.com
Fri Jun 20 10:23:30 PDT 2014


On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 05:44:52PM +0100, Kees Cook wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 3:22 AM, Will Deacon <will.deacon at arm.com> wrote:
> > I'm struggling to see the bug in the current code, so apologies if my
> > questions aren't helpful.
> >
> > On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 09:27:48PM +0100, Kees Cook wrote:
> >> An x86 tracer wanting to change the syscall uses PTRACE_SETREGS
> >> (stored to regs->orig_ax), and an ARM tracer uses PTRACE_SET_SYSCALL
> >> (stored to current_thread_info()->syscall). When this happens, the
> >> syscall can change across the call to secure_computing(), since it may
> >> block on tracer notification, and the tracer can then make changes
> >> to the process, before we return from secure_computing(). This
> >> means the code must respect the changed syscall after the
> >> secure_computing() call in syscall_trace_enter(). The same is true
> >> for tracehook_report_syscall_entry() which may also block and change
> >> the syscall.
> >
> > I don't think I understand what you mean by `the code must respect the
> > changed syscall'. The current code does indeed issue the new syscall, so are
> > you more concerned with secure_computing changing ->syscall, then the
> > debugger can't see the new syscall when it sees the trap from tracehook?
> > Are these even supposed to inter-operate?
> 
> The problem is the use of "scno" in the call -- it results in ignoring
> the value that may be set up in ->syscall by a tracer:
> 
> syscall_trace_enter(regs, scno):
>     current_thread_info()->syscall = scno;
>     secure_computing(scno):
>         [block on ptrace]
>         [ptracer changes current_thread_info()->syscall vis PTRACE_SET_SYSCALL]
>     ...
>     return scno;
> 
> This means the tracer's changed syscall value will be ignored
> (syscall_trace_enter returns original "scno" instead of actual
> current_thread_info()->syscall). In the original code, failure cases
> were propagated correctly, but not tracer-induced changes.
> 
> Is that more clear? It's not an obvious state (due to the external
> modification of process state during the ptrace blocking). I've also
> got tests for this, if that's useful to further illustrate:
> 
> https://github.com/kees/seccomp/commit/bd24e174593f79784b97178b583f17e0ea9d2aa7

Right, gotcha. Thanks for the explanation. I was confused, because
tracehook_report_syscall does the right thing (returns
current_thread_info()->syscall), but if we don't have TIF_SYSCALL_TRACE set,
then updates during the secure_computing callback will be ignored.

However, my fix to this is significantly smaller than your patch, so I fear
I'm still missing something.

Will

--->8

diff --git a/arch/arm/kernel/ptrace.c b/arch/arm/kernel/ptrace.c
index 0dd3b79b15c3..0c27ed6f3f23 100644
--- a/arch/arm/kernel/ptrace.c
+++ b/arch/arm/kernel/ptrace.c
@@ -908,7 +908,7 @@ enum ptrace_syscall_dir {
        PTRACE_SYSCALL_EXIT,
 };
 
-static int tracehook_report_syscall(struct pt_regs *regs,
+static void tracehook_report_syscall(struct pt_regs *regs,
                                    enum ptrace_syscall_dir dir)
 {
        unsigned long ip;
@@ -926,7 +926,6 @@ static int tracehook_report_syscall(struct pt_regs *regs,
                current_thread_info()->syscall = -1;
 
        regs->ARM_ip = ip;
-       return current_thread_info()->syscall;
 }
 
 asmlinkage int syscall_trace_enter(struct pt_regs *regs, int scno)
@@ -938,7 +937,9 @@ asmlinkage int syscall_trace_enter(struct pt_regs *regs, int scno)
                return -1;
 
        if (test_thread_flag(TIF_SYSCALL_TRACE))
-               scno = tracehook_report_syscall(regs, PTRACE_SYSCALL_ENTER);
+               tracehook_report_syscall(regs, PTRACE_SYSCALL_ENTER);
+
+       scno = current_thread_info()->syscall;
 
        if (test_thread_flag(TIF_SYSCALL_TRACEPOINT))
                trace_sys_enter(regs, scno);



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