[PATCH 0/4 POC] Allow executing code and syscalls in another address space

[Jann Horn]

 On Wed, Apr 14, 2021 at 2:20 PM Florian Weimer <fweimer at redhat.com> wrote:
>
> * Jann Horn:
>
> > On Wed, Apr 14, 2021 at 12:27 PM Florian Weimer <fweimer at redhat.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> * Andrei Vagin:
> >>
> >> > We already have process_vm_readv and process_vm_writev to read and write
> >> > to a process memory faster than we can do this with ptrace. And now it
> >> > is time for process_vm_exec that allows executing code in an address
> >> > space of another process. We can do this with ptrace but it is much
> >> > slower.
> >> >
> >> > = Use-cases =
> >>
> >> We also have some vaguely related within the same address space: running
> >> code on another thread, without modifying its stack, while it has signal
> >> handlers blocked, and without causing system calls to fail with EINTR.
> >> This can be used to implement certain kinds of memory barriers.
> >
> > That's what the membarrier() syscall is for, right? Unless you don't
> > want to register all threads for expedited membarrier use?
>
> membarrier is not sufficiently powerful for revoking biased locks, for
> example.

But on Linux >=5.10, together with rseq, it is, right? Then lock
acquisition could look roughly like this, in pseudo-C (yes, I know,
real rseq doesn't quite look like that, you'd need inline asm for that
unless the compiler adds special support for this):


enum local_state {
  STATE_FREE_OR_BIASED,
  STATE_LOCKED
};
#define OWNER_LOCKBIT (1U<<31)
#define OWNER_WAITER_BIT (1U<<30) /* notify futex when OWNER_LOCKBIT
is cleared */
struct biased_lock {
  unsigned int owner_with_lockbit;
  enum local_state local_state;
};

void lock(struct biased_lock *L) {
  unsigned int my_tid = THREAD_SELF->tid;
  RSEQ_SEQUENCE_START(); // restart here on failure
  if (READ_ONCE(L->owner) == my_tid) {
    if (READ_ONCE(L->local_state) == STATE_LOCKED) {
      RSEQ_SEQUENCE_END();
      /*
       * Deadlock, abort execution.
       * Note that we are not necessarily actually *holding* the lock;
       * this can also happen if we entered a signal handler while we
       * were in the process of acquiring the lock.
       * But in that case it could just as well have happened that we
       * already grabbed the lock, so the caller is wrong anyway.
       */
      fatal_error();
    }
    RSEQ_COMMIT(L->local_state = STATE_LOCKED);
    return; /* fastpath success */
  }
  RSEQ_SEQUENCE_END();

  /* slowpath */
  /* acquire and lock owner field */
  unsigned int old_owner_with_lockbit;
  while (1) {
    old_owner_with_lockbit = READ_ONCE(L->owner_with_lockbit);
    if (old_owner_with_lockbit & OWNER_LOCKBIT) {
      if (!__sync_bool_compare_and_swap (&L->owner_with_lockbit,
old_owner_with_lockbit, my_tid | OWNER_LOCKBIT | OWNER_WAITER_BIT))
       continue;
      futex(&L->owner_with_lockbit, FUTEX_WAIT,
old_owner_with_lockbit, NULL, NULL, 0);
      continue;
    } else {
      if (__sync_bool_compare_and_swap (&L->owner_with_lockbit,
old_owner_with_lockbit, my_tid | OWNER_LOCKBIT))
        break;
    }
  }

  /*
   * ensure old owner won't lock local_state anymore.
   * we only have to worry about the owner that directly preceded us here;
   * it will have done this step for the owners that preceded it before clearing
   * the LOCKBIT; so if we were the old owner, we don't have to sync.
   */
  if (old_owner_with_lockbit != my_tid) {
    if (membarrier(MEMBARRIER_CMD_PRIVATE_EXPEDITED_RSEQ, 0, 0))
      fatal_error();
  }

  /*
   * As soon as the lock becomes STATE_FREE_OR_BIASED, we own it; but
   * at this point it might still be locked.
   */
  while (READ_ONCE(L->local_state) == STATE_LOCKED) {
    futex(&L->local_state, FUTEX_WAIT, STATE_LOCKED, NULL, NULL, 0);
  }

  /* OK, now the lock is biased to us and we can grab it. */
  WRITE_ONCE(L->local_state, STATE_LOCKED);

  /* drop lockbit */
  unsigned int old_owner_with_lockbit;
  while (1) {
    old_owner_with_lockbit = READ_ONCE(L->owner_with_lockbit);
    if (__sync_bool_compare_and_swap (&L->owner_with_lockbit,
old_owner_with_lockbit, my_tid))
      break;
  }
  if (old_owner_with_lockbit & OWNER_WAITER_BIT)
    futex(&L->owner_with_lockbit, FUTEX_WAKE, INT_MAX, NULL, NULL, 0);
}

void unlock(struct biased_lock *L) {
  unsigned int my_tid = THREAD_SELF->tid;

  /*
   * If we run before the membarrier(), the lock() path will immediately
   * see the lock as uncontended, and we don't need to call futex().
   * If we run after the membarrier(), the ->owner_with_lockbit read
   * here will observe the new owner and we'll wake the futex.
   */
  RSEQ_SEQUENCE_START();
  unsigned int old_owner_with_lockbit = READ_ONCE(L->owner_with_lockbit);
  RSEQ_COMMIT(WRITE_ONCE(L->local_state, STATE_FREE_OR_BIASED));
  if (old_owner_with_lockbit != my_tid)
    futex(&L->local_state, FUTEX_WAKE, INT_MAX, NULL, NULL, 0);
}