Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:06:24 -0800
From: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
To: Ubuntu security discussion <ubuntu-hardened@lists.ubuntu.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, kernel-hardening@lists.openwall.com,
        pageexec@freemail.hu, spender@grsecurity.net
Subject: Re: Add overflow protection to kref
Message-ID: <20120217010624.GA6541@outflux.net>
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 <20120216204515.GH20420@outflux.net>
 <20120217002405.GB7746@kroah.com>
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On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 04:24:05PM -0800, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 12:45:15PM -0800, Kees Cook wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > [This should probably be discussed on LKML for an even wider audience, so
> > I've added a CC for it there.]
> > 
> > On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 09:02:13AM -0500, David Windsor wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > We are attempting to add various grsecurity/PAX features to upstream
> > > Ubuntu kernels.
> > 
> > This didn't parse quite right for me. I think you meant that the intent
> > is to get these features into the upstream Linux kernel, with potential
> > staging in Ubuntu kernels.
> > 
> > (Also s/PAX/PaX/g)
> > 
> > > The PAX folks added refcount overflow protection by inserting
> > > architecture-specific code in the increment paths of atomic_t.  For
> > > instance:
> > > 
> > > static inline void atomic_inc(atomic_t *v)
> > >  {
> > > 	asm volatile(LOCK_PREFIX "incl %0\n"
> > > 
> > > #ifdef CONFIG_PAX_REFCOUNT
> > > 		     "jno 0f\n"
> > > 		     LOCK_PREFIX "decl %0\n"
> > > 		     "int $4\n0:\n"
> > > 		     _ASM_EXTABLE(0b, 0b)
> > > #endif
> > > 
> > > 		     : "+m" (v->counter));
> > > }
> > > 
> > > There are two distinct classes of users we need to consider here:
> > > those who use atomic_t for reference counters and those who use
> > > atomic_t for keeping track of statistics, like performance counters,
> > > etc.; it makes little sense to overflow a performance counter, so we
> > > shouldn't subject those users to the same protections as imposed on
> > > actual reference counters.  The solution implemented by PAX is to
> > > create a family of *_unchecked() functions and to patch
> > > statistics-based users of atomic_t to use this interface.
> > > 
> > > PAX refcount overflow protection was developed before kref was
> > > created.  I'd like to move overflow protection out of atomic_t and
> > > into kref and gradually migrate atomic_t users to kref, leaving
> > > atomic_t for those users who don't need overflow protection (e.g.
> > > statistics-based counters).
> > 
> > For people new to this, can you give an overview of what attacks are foiled
> > by adding overflow protection?
> > 
> > > I realize that there are many users of atomic_t needing overflow
> > > protection, but the move to kref seems like the right thing to do in
> > > this case.
> > > 
> > > Leaving the semantics of overflow detection aside for the moment, what
> > > are everyone's thoughts on adding overflow protection to kref rather
> > > than to atomic_t?
> > 
> > Why was kref introduced? Or rather, how is kref currently different from
> > atomic_t?
> 
> a kref is to handle reference counting for an object, so you don't have
> to constantly "roll your own" all the time using an atomic_t or
> whatever.  It's the basis for the struct kobject and other object
> reference counting structures in the kernel for a very long time now.
> 
> And in all that time, I've never seen an instance where you can overflow
> the reference count, so I'm hard pressed to see how changing kref in
> this manner will help anything at all.

A quick search gives me:
CVE-2005-3359: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=175769
CVE-2006-3741: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=b8444d00762703e1b6146fce12ce2684885f8bf6

And actually an earlier discussion you were actually involved in:
https://lkml.org/lkml/2008/7/16/300

> So no, I don't recommend changing this logic at all in kref.

If it's inexpensive and helps defend against problems, it seems sensible to
add to me.

> Now if there are instances in the kernel where a "raw" atomic_t is being
> used for object reference counting, moving that to use 'struct kref'
> would be gladly appreciated, but that's kind of outside the scope of
> what you are attempting to do here.

-Kees

-- 
Kees Cook
ChromeOS Security
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