Subject: Re: [PATCH] pty: fix use after free of tty->driver_data
To: "Herton R. Krzesinski" <herton@redhat.com>
References: <1450150179-20925-1-git-send-email-herton@redhat.com>
 <1450150179-20925-2-git-send-email-herton@redhat.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>,
        Jiri Slaby <jslaby@suse.com>
From: Peter Hurley <peter@hurleysoftware.com>
Message-ID: <56704F9A.6050006@hurleysoftware.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2015 09:36:26 -0800
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Hi Herton,

On 12/14/2015 07:29 PM, Herton R. Krzesinski wrote:
> pty_unix98_shutdown allows a potential use after free of inode from
> slave tty->driver_data: if final pty close is called with slave
> tty_struct, and inode was released already by devpts_pty_kill at
> pty_close, pty_unix98_shutdown will access stale data.

I'm not following this logic.

Suppose there is no open current tty alias for the slave pty; then
there is one inode reference for the master and N + 1 inode references
for however many times the slave has been opened.

If the master is closed first, the slave dentry is dropped so there
are now N slave inode references. When the last slave closes, the
slave inode is still valid when devpts_kill_index() is called.

So afaict, this problem only applies when /dev/tty is the final
close, and at no other time. [Not to minimize the scale of the problem:
quite often, /dev/tty would be the last file closed.]


> If the evicted inode is quickly reused again as another inode
> instance, this can potentially break in the case the inode is on a
> different devpts instance than the default devpts mount, not to
> mention a possible ops if the inode_cache slab is destroyed and
> reused as something else.
> 
> Also there is an evident problem in case the last close is from a
> opened "/dev/tty" which points to the master/slave pty:

/dev/tty can only refer to the slave pty.


> since in this
> case any of the tty->driver_data can be stale, due to all references/
> files being closed before (files related to ptmx/pts inodes set at
> tty->driver_data), we have the possibility of referencing an already
> freed inode.

As I wrote above, I believe this is the only possible circumstance
for which the file that is releasing could have stale pts inodes.


> The fix here is to keep a reference on the opened master ptmx inode.
> We maintain the inode referenced until the final pty_unix98_shutdown,
> and only pass this inode to devpts_kill_index.

Let me think some on your proposed solution.


> Signed-off-by: Herton R. Krzesinski <herton@redhat.com>
> Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>

Afaict, the stable tag goes back to the original implementation.
Did you research how far back the /dev/tty alias problem goes?

Regards,
Peter Hurley

> ---
>  drivers/tty/pty.c | 18 +++++++++++++++++-
>  1 file changed, 17 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/tty/pty.c b/drivers/tty/pty.c
> index a45660f..90743b0 100644
> --- a/drivers/tty/pty.c
> +++ b/drivers/tty/pty.c
> @@ -681,7 +681,14 @@ static void pty_unix98_remove(struct tty_driver *driver, struct tty_struct *tty)
>  /* this is called once with whichever end is closed last */
>  static void pty_unix98_shutdown(struct tty_struct *tty)
>  {
> -	devpts_kill_index(tty->driver_data, tty->index);
> +	struct inode *ptmx_inode;
> +
> +	if (tty->driver->subtype == PTY_TYPE_MASTER)
> +		ptmx_inode = tty->driver_data;
> +	else
> +		ptmx_inode = tty->link->driver_data;
> +	devpts_kill_index(ptmx_inode, tty->index);
> +	iput(ptmx_inode); /* drop reference we acquired at ptmx_open */
>  }
>  
>  static const struct tty_operations ptm_unix98_ops = {
> @@ -773,6 +780,15 @@ static int ptmx_open(struct inode *inode, struct file *filp)
>  	set_bit(TTY_PTY_LOCK, &tty->flags); /* LOCK THE SLAVE */
>  	tty->driver_data = inode;
>  
> +	/*
> +	 * In the rare case all references to ptmx inode are dropped (files
> +	 * closed), and we still have a device opened pointing to the
> +	 * master/slave pair (eg., "/dev/tty" opened), we must make sure that
> +	 * the inode is still valid when we call the final pty_unix98_shutdown:
> +	 * thus we must hold an additional reference to the ptmx inode here
> +	 */
> +	ihold(inode);
> +
>  	tty_add_file(tty, filp);
>  
>  	slave_inode = devpts_pty_new(inode,
> 

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