[PATCH v3 3/6] fs: use copy_from_user_nolog() to copy mount() data

Dmitry Vyukov dvyukov at google.com
Wed Dec 8 01:34:52 PST 2021


On Wed, 8 Dec 2021 at 05:48, Peter Collingbourne <pcc at google.com> wrote:
>
> With uaccess logging the contract is that the kernel must not report
> accessing more data than necessary, as this can lead to false positive
> reports in downstream consumers. This generally works out of the box
> when instrumenting copy_{from,to}_user(), but with the data argument
> to mount() we use copy_from_user() to copy PAGE_SIZE bytes (or as
> much as we can, if the PAGE_SIZE sized access failed) and figure out
> later how much we actually need.
>
> To prevent this from leading to a false positive report, use
> copy_from_user_nolog(), which will prevent the access from being logged.
> Recall that it is valid for the kernel to report accessing less
> data than it actually accessed, as uaccess logging is a best-effort
> mechanism for reporting uaccesses.
>
> Link: https://linux-review.googlesource.com/id/I5629b92a725c817acd9a861288338dd605cafee6
> Signed-off-by: Peter Collingbourne <pcc at google.com>
> ---
>  fs/namespace.c | 8 +++++++-
>  1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/fs/namespace.c b/fs/namespace.c
> index 659a8f39c61a..8f5f2aaca64e 100644
> --- a/fs/namespace.c
> +++ b/fs/namespace.c
> @@ -31,6 +31,7 @@
>  #include <uapi/linux/mount.h>
>  #include <linux/fs_context.h>
>  #include <linux/shmem_fs.h>
> +#include <linux/uaccess-buffer.h>
>
>  #include "pnode.h"
>  #include "internal.h"
> @@ -3197,7 +3198,12 @@ static void *copy_mount_options(const void __user * data)
>         if (!copy)
>                 return ERR_PTR(-ENOMEM);
>
> -       left = copy_from_user(copy, data, PAGE_SIZE);
> +       /*
> +        * Use copy_from_user_nolog to avoid reporting overly large accesses in
> +        * the uaccess buffer, as this can lead to false positive reports in
> +        * downstream consumers.
> +        */
> +       left = copy_from_user_nolog(copy, data, PAGE_SIZE);

A late idea...
Maybe it's better to log them with a new UACCESS_BUFFER_FLAG_OVERREAD
flag. Better for user-space, at least can detect UAFs by checking the
first byte. And a more logical kernel annotation (maybe will be used
in some other tools? or if we ever check user tags in the kernel).

Probably not too important today since we use this only in 2 places,
but longer term may be better.

Btw, what's the story with BPF accesses? Can we log them theoretically?

Previously the comment said:

+       /*
+        * Avoid copy_from_user() here as it may leak information about the BPF
+        * program to userspace via the uaccess buffer.
+        */

but now it says something very generic:

/*
* Avoid logging uaccesses here as the BPF program may not be following
* the uaccess log rules.
*/






>         /*
>          * Not all architectures have an exact copy_from_user(). Resort to
> --
> 2.34.1.173.g76aa8bc2d0-goog



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