Date:   Thu, 2 Mar 2023 20:11:08 +0000
From:   Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
To:     Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Cc:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>,
        Mateusz Guzik <mjguzik@gmail.com>,
        Eric Biggers <ebiggers@google.com>,
        Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>,
        Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>, serge@hallyn.com,
        paul@paul-moore.com, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-security-module@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 2/2] vfs: avoid duplicating creds in faccessat if
 possible
Message-ID: <ZAEC3LN6oUe6BKSN@ZenIV>
References: <CAHk-=wgbm1rjkSs0w+dVJJzzK2M1No=j419c+i7T4V4ky2skOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20230302083025.khqdizrnjkzs2lt6@wittgenstein>
 <CAHk-=wivxuLSE4ESRYv_=e8wXrD0GEjFQmUYnHKyR1iTDTeDwg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAGudoHF9WKoKhKRHOH_yMsPnX+8Lh0fXe+y-K26mVR0gajEhaQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <ZADoeOiJs6BRLUSd@ZenIV>
 <CAGudoHFhnJ1z-81FKYpzfDmvcWFeHNkKGdr00CkuH5WJa2FAMQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAHk-=wjp5fMupRwnROtC5Yn+MVLA7v=J+_QJSi1rr3qAjdsfXw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAHk-=wi11ZbOBdMR5hQDz0x0NNZ9gM-4SxXxK-7R3_yh7e10rQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <ZAD21ZEiB2V9Ttto@ZenIV>
 <6400fedb.170a0220.ece29.04b8@mx.google.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
In-Reply-To: <6400fedb.170a0220.ece29.04b8@mx.google.com>
Sender: Al Viro <viro@ftp.linux.org.uk>
Precedence: bulk

On Thu, Mar 02, 2023 at 11:54:03AM -0800, Kees Cook wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 02, 2023 at 07:19:49PM +0000, Al Viro wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 02, 2023 at 11:10:03AM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > > On Thu, Mar 2, 2023 at 11:03 AM Linus Torvalds
> > > <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > It might be best if we actually exposed it as a SLAB_SKIP_ZERO thing,
> > > > just to make it possible to say - exactly in situations like this -
> > > > that this particular slab cache has no advantage from pre-zeroing.
> > > 
> > > Actually, maybe it's just as well to keep it per-allocation, and just
> > > special-case getname_flags() itself.
> > > 
> > > We could replace the __getname() there with just a
> > > 
> > >         kmem_cache_alloc(names_cachep, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_SKIP_ZERO);
> > > 
> > > we're going to overwrite the beginning of the buffer with the path we
> > > copy from user space, and then we'd have to make people comfortable
> > > with the fact that even with zero initialization hardening on, the
> > > space after the filename wouldn't be initialized...
> > 
> > ACK; same in getname_kernel() and sys_getcwd(), at the very least.
> 
> FWIW, much earlier analysis suggested opting out these kmem caches:
> 
> 	buffer_head
> 	names_cache
> 	mm_struct
> 	anon_vma
> 	skbuff_head_cache
> 	skbuff_fclone_cache

I would probably add dentry_cache to it; the only subtle part is
->d_iname and I'm convinced that explicit "make sure there's a NUL
at the very end" is enough.