| Message ID | 20190423181210.GA2443@beast (mailing list archive) |
|---|---|
| State | New, archived |
| Headers | show |
| Series | binfmt_elf: Update READ_IMPLIES_EXEC logic for modern CPUs | expand |
+linux-api, +musl On Tue, Apr 23, 2019 at 8:12 PM Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org> wrote: > The READ_IMPLIES_EXEC work-around was designed for old CPUs lacking NX > (to have the visible permission flags on memory regions reflect reality: > they are all executable), and for old toolchains that lacked the ELF > PT_GNU_STACK marking (under the assumption than toolchains that couldn't > even specify memory protection flags may have it wrong for all memory > regions). > > This logic is sensible, but was implemented in a way that equated having > a PT_GNU_STACK marked executable as being as "broken" as lacking the > PT_GNU_STACK marking entirely. This is not a reasonable assumption > for CPUs that have had NX support from the start (or very close to > the start). This confusion has led to situations where modern 64-bit > programs with explicitly marked executable stack are forced into the > READ_IMPLIES_EXEC state when no such thing is needed. (And leads to > unexpected failures when mmap()ing regions of device driver memory that > wish to disallow VM_EXEC[1].) > > To fix this, elf_read_implies_exec() is adjusted on arm64 (where NX has > always existed and all toolchains include PT_GNU_STACK), and x86 is > adjusted to handle this combination of possible outcomes: > > CPU: | lacks NX | has NX, ia32 | has NX, x86_64 | > ELF: | | | | > ------------------------------|------------------|------------------| > missing GNU_STACK | needs RIE | needs RIE | no RIE | > GNU_STACK == RWX | needs RIE | no RIE: stack X | no RIE: stack X | > GNU_STACK == RW | needs RIE | no RIE: stack NX | no RIE: stack NX | > > This has the effect of making binfmt_elf's EXSTACK_DEFAULT actually take > on the correct architecture default of being non-executable on arm64 and > x86_64, and being executable on ia32. It's probably worth going a bit more into detail in this description on how libraries typically allocate thread stacks. It looks like glibc will be fine; before commit 54ee14b3882 (https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=blobdiff;f=nptl/allocatestack.c;h=dc501650b8629eda4502f2016016f09106cfb526;hp=6ada1fe1381de104153c0627e27f09fe5ad02caa;hb=54ee14b3882;hpb=16a76cd23ce9d3924fa192395e730423e3dc8b36), thread stacks were always RWX, and since then, from what I can tell, thread stacks were executable depending on the executable's ELF headers (as parsed by glibc). But e.g. musl's __pthread_create() seems to hardcode PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, which I think would mean that if someone built a multithreaded program with nested functions and linked with musl, that program would stop working? Or maybe I'm just reading the code wrong. Then again, I'm not sure whether anyone actually uses nested functions...
On Tue, Apr 23, 2019 at 12:02 PM Jann Horn <jannh@google.com> wrote: > It's probably worth going a bit more into detail in this description > on how libraries typically allocate thread stacks. > > It looks like glibc will be fine; before commit 54ee14b3882 > (https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=blobdiff;f=nptl/allocatestack.c;h=dc501650b8629eda4502f2016016f09106cfb526;hp=6ada1fe1381de104153c0627e27f09fe5ad02caa;hb=54ee14b3882;hpb=16a76cd23ce9d3924fa192395e730423e3dc8b36), > thread stacks were always RWX, and since then, from what I can tell, > thread stacks were executable depending on the executable's ELF > headers (as parsed by glibc). 2003, which seems safely (?) in the past. :) > But e.g. musl's __pthread_create() seems to hardcode > PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, which I think would mean that if someone built a > multithreaded program with nested functions and linked with musl, that > program would stop working? Or maybe I'm just reading the code wrong. Rephrasing for myself: this could break multithread binaries linked with musl and marked with PT_GNU_STACK to RWE since musl doesn't check ELF headers to determine stack executable-ness when allocating stack space in __pthread_create(). > Then again, I'm not sure whether anyone actually uses nested functions... It is blissfully rare, but it seems common (?) for Fortran binaries. Are there multithreaded fortran binaries linked with musl that will break because of this? I guess it's possible. If that happens, we can adjust the logic with notes of an actual case. :)
On Tue, Apr 23, 2019 at 09:02:03PM +0200, Jann Horn wrote: > +linux-api, +musl > > On Tue, Apr 23, 2019 at 8:12 PM Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org> wrote: > > The READ_IMPLIES_EXEC work-around was designed for old CPUs lacking NX > > (to have the visible permission flags on memory regions reflect reality: > > they are all executable), and for old toolchains that lacked the ELF > > PT_GNU_STACK marking (under the assumption than toolchains that couldn't > > even specify memory protection flags may have it wrong for all memory > > regions). > > > > This logic is sensible, but was implemented in a way that equated having > > a PT_GNU_STACK marked executable as being as "broken" as lacking the > > PT_GNU_STACK marking entirely. This is not a reasonable assumption > > for CPUs that have had NX support from the start (or very close to > > the start). This confusion has led to situations where modern 64-bit > > programs with explicitly marked executable stack are forced into the > > READ_IMPLIES_EXEC state when no such thing is needed. (And leads to > > unexpected failures when mmap()ing regions of device driver memory that > > wish to disallow VM_EXEC[1].) > > > > To fix this, elf_read_implies_exec() is adjusted on arm64 (where NX has > > always existed and all toolchains include PT_GNU_STACK), and x86 is > > adjusted to handle this combination of possible outcomes: > > > > CPU: | lacks NX | has NX, ia32 | has NX, x86_64 | > > ELF: | | | | > > ------------------------------|------------------|------------------| > > missing GNU_STACK | needs RIE | needs RIE | no RIE | > > GNU_STACK == RWX | needs RIE | no RIE: stack X | no RIE: stack X | > > GNU_STACK == RW | needs RIE | no RIE: stack NX | no RIE: stack NX | > > > > This has the effect of making binfmt_elf's EXSTACK_DEFAULT actually take > > on the correct architecture default of being non-executable on arm64 and > > x86_64, and being executable on ia32. > > It's probably worth going a bit more into detail in this description > on how libraries typically allocate thread stacks. > > It looks like glibc will be fine; before commit 54ee14b3882 > (https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=blobdiff;f=nptl/allocatestack.c;h=dc501650b8629eda4502f2016016f09106cfb526;hp=6ada1fe1381de104153c0627e27f09fe5ad02caa;hb=54ee14b3882;hpb=16a76cd23ce9d3924fa192395e730423e3dc8b36), > thread stacks were always RWX, and since then, from what I can tell, > thread stacks were executable depending on the executable's ELF > headers (as parsed by glibc). > > But e.g. musl's __pthread_create() seems to hardcode > PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, which I think would mean that if someone built a > multithreaded program with nested functions and linked with musl, that > program would stop working? Or maybe I'm just reading the code wrong. musl intentionally/explicitly does not support executable stacks. If you happen to get one from the kernel for the main thread, things might happen to work, but it's unintended and unsupported functionality. Rich
diff --git a/arch/arm64/include/asm/elf.h b/arch/arm64/include/asm/elf.h index 6adc1a90e7e6..7fbd295a76d2 100644 --- a/arch/arm64/include/asm/elf.h +++ b/arch/arm64/include/asm/elf.h @@ -107,7 +107,14 @@ */ #define elf_check_arch(x) ((x)->e_machine == EM_AARCH64) -#define elf_read_implies_exec(ex,stk) (stk != EXSTACK_DISABLE_X) +/* + * 64-bit processes should not automatically gain READ_IMPLIES_EXEC. Only + * 32-bit processes without PT_GNU_STACK should trigger READ_IMPLIES_EXEC + * out of an abundance of caution against ancient toolchains not knowing + * how to mark memory protection flags correctly. + */ +#define elf_read_implies_exec(ex, stk) \ + (is_compat_task() && stk == EXSTACK_DEFAULT) #define CORE_DUMP_USE_REGSET #define ELF_EXEC_PAGESIZE PAGE_SIZE diff --git a/arch/x86/include/asm/elf.h b/arch/x86/include/asm/elf.h index 69c0f892e310..87d9cf7643b4 100644 --- a/arch/x86/include/asm/elf.h +++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/elf.h @@ -280,10 +280,28 @@ extern u32 elf_hwcap2; /* * An executable for which elf_read_implies_exec() returns TRUE will - * have the READ_IMPLIES_EXEC personality flag set automatically. + * have the READ_IMPLIES_EXEC personality flag set automatically. This + * is needed either to show the truth about a memory mapping (i.e. CPUs + * that lack NX have all memory implicitly executable, so this makes + * sure that the visible permissions reflect reality), or to deal with + * old toolchains on new CPUs. Old binaries entirely lacking a GNU_STACK + * indicate they were likely built with a toolchain that has no idea about + * memory permissions, and so we must default to the lowest reasonable + * common denominator for the architecture: on ia32 we assume all memory + * to be executable by default, and on x86_64 we assume all memory to be + * non-executable by default. + * + * CPU: | lacks NX | has NX, ia32 | has NX, x86_64 | + * ELF: | | | | + * ------------------------------|------------------|------------------| + * missing GNU_STACK | needs RIE | needs RIE | no RIE | + * GNU_STACK == RWX | needs RIE | no RIE: stack X | no RIE: stack X | + * GNU_STACK == RW | needs RIE | no RIE: stack NX | no RIE: stack NX | + * */ -#define elf_read_implies_exec(ex, executable_stack) \ - (executable_stack != EXSTACK_DISABLE_X) +#define elf_read_implies_exec(ex, stk) \ + (!(__supported_pte_mask & _PAGE_NX) ? 1 : \ + (mmap_is_ia32() && stk == EXSTACK_DEFAULT)) struct task_struct;
The READ_IMPLIES_EXEC work-around was designed for old CPUs lacking NX (to have the visible permission flags on memory regions reflect reality: they are all executable), and for old toolchains that lacked the ELF PT_GNU_STACK marking (under the assumption than toolchains that couldn't even specify memory protection flags may have it wrong for all memory regions). This logic is sensible, but was implemented in a way that equated having a PT_GNU_STACK marked executable as being as "broken" as lacking the PT_GNU_STACK marking entirely. This is not a reasonable assumption for CPUs that have had NX support from the start (or very close to the start). This confusion has led to situations where modern 64-bit programs with explicitly marked executable stack are forced into the READ_IMPLIES_EXEC state when no such thing is needed. (And leads to unexpected failures when mmap()ing regions of device driver memory that wish to disallow VM_EXEC[1].) To fix this, elf_read_implies_exec() is adjusted on arm64 (where NX has always existed and all toolchains include PT_GNU_STACK), and x86 is adjusted to handle this combination of possible outcomes: CPU: | lacks NX | has NX, ia32 | has NX, x86_64 | ELF: | | | | ------------------------------|------------------|------------------| missing GNU_STACK | needs RIE | needs RIE | no RIE | GNU_STACK == RWX | needs RIE | no RIE: stack X | no RIE: stack X | GNU_STACK == RW | needs RIE | no RIE: stack NX | no RIE: stack NX | This has the effect of making binfmt_elf's EXSTACK_DEFAULT actually take on the correct architecture default of being non-executable on arm64 and x86_64, and being executable on ia32. [1] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20190418055759.GA3155@mellanox.com Suggested-by: Hector Marco-Gisbert <hecmargi@upv.es> Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org> --- arch/arm64/include/asm/elf.h | 9 ++++++++- arch/x86/include/asm/elf.h | 24 +++++++++++++++++++++--- 2 files changed, 29 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)