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  1. Aug 21, 2023
    • Aleksa Sarai's avatar
      memfd: replace ratcheting feature from vm.memfd_noexec with hierarchy · 9876cfe8
      Aleksa Sarai authored
      This sysctl has the very unusual behaviour of not allowing any user (even
      CAP_SYS_ADMIN) to reduce the restriction setting, meaning that if you were
      to set this sysctl to a more restrictive option in the host pidns you
      would need to reboot your machine in order to reset it.
      
      The justification given in [1] is that this is a security feature and thus
      it should not be possible to disable.  Aside from the fact that we have
      plenty of security-related sysctls that can be disabled after being
      enabled (fs.protected_symlinks for instance), the protection provided by
      the sysctl is to stop users from being able to create a binary and then
      execute it.  A user with CAP_SYS_ADMIN can trivially do this without
      memfd_create(2):
      
        % cat mount-memfd.c
        #include <fcntl.h>
        #include <string.h>
        #include <stdio.h>
        #include <stdlib.h>
        #include <unistd.h>
        #include <linux/mount.h>
      
        #define SHELLCODE "#!/bin/echo this file was executed from this totally private tmpfs:"
      
        int main(void)
        {
        	int fsfd = fsopen("tmpfs", FSOPEN_CLOEXEC);
        	assert(fsfd >= 0);
        	assert(!fsconfig(fsfd, FSCONFIG_CMD_CREATE, NULL, NULL, 2));
      
        	int dfd = fsmount(fsfd, FSMOUNT_CLOEXEC, 0);
        	assert(dfd >= 0);
      
        	int execfd = openat(dfd, "exe", O_CREAT | O_RDWR | O_CLOEXEC, 0782);
        	assert(execfd >= 0);
        	assert(write(execfd, SHELLCODE, strlen(SHELLCODE)) == strlen(SHELLCODE));
        	assert(!close(execfd));
      
        	char *execpath = NULL;
        	char *argv[] = { "bad-exe", NULL }, *envp[] = { NULL };
        	execfd = openat(dfd, "exe", O_PATH | O_CLOEXEC);
        	assert(execfd >= 0);
        	assert(asprintf(&execpath, "/proc/self/fd/%d", execfd) > 0);
        	assert(!execve(execpath, argv, envp));
        }
        % ./mount-memfd
        this file was executed from this totally private tmpfs: /proc/self/fd/5
        %
      
      Given that it is possible for CAP_SYS_ADMIN users to create executable
      binaries without memfd_create(2) and without touching the host filesystem
      (not to mention the many other things a CAP_SYS_ADMIN process would be
      able to do that would be equivalent or worse), it seems strange to cause a
      fair amount of headache to admins when there doesn't appear to be an
      actual security benefit to blocking this.  There appear to be concerns
      about confused-deputy-esque attacks[2] but a confused deputy that can
      write to arbitrary sysctls is a bigger security issue than executable
      memfds.
      
      /* New API */
      
      The primary requirement from the original author appears to be more based
      on the need to be able to restrict an entire system in a hierarchical
      manner[3], such that child namespaces cannot re-enable executable memfds.
      
      So, implement that behaviour explicitly -- the vm.memfd_noexec scope is
      evaluated up the pidns tree to &init_pid_ns and you have the most
      restrictive value applied to you.  The new lower limit you can set
      vm.memfd_noexec is whatever limit applies to your parent.
      
      Note that a pidns will inherit a copy of the parent pidns's effective
      vm.memfd_noexec setting at unshare() time.  This matches the existing
      behaviour, and it also ensures that a pidns will never have its
      vm.memfd_noexec setting *lowered* behind its back (but it will be raised
      if the parent raises theirs).
      
      /* Backwards Compatibility */
      
      As the previous version of the sysctl didn't allow you to lower the
      setting at all, there are no backwards compatibility issues with this
      aspect of the change.
      
      However it should be noted that now that the setting is completely
      hierarchical.  Previously, a cloned pidns would just copy the current
      pidns setting, meaning that if the parent's vm.memfd_noexec was changed it
      wouldn't propoagate to existing pid namespaces.  Now, the restriction
      applies recursively.  This is a uAPI change, however:
      
       * The sysctl is very new, having been merged in 6.3.
       * Several aspects of the sysctl were broken up until this patchset and
         the other patchset by Jeff Xu last month.
      
      And thus it seems incredibly unlikely that any real users would run into
      this issue. In the worst case, if this causes userspace isues we could
      make it so that modifying the setting follows the hierarchical rules but
      the restriction checking uses the cached copy.
      
      [1]: https://lore.kernel.org/CABi2SkWnAgHK1i6iqSqPMYuNEhtHBkO8jUuCvmG3RmUB5TKHJw@mail.gmail.com/
      [2]: https://lore.kernel.org/CALmYWFs_dNCzw_pW1yRAo4bGCPEtykroEQaowNULp7svwMLjOg@mail.gmail.com/
      [3]: https://lore.kernel.org/CALmYWFuahdUF7cT4cm7_TGLqPanuHXJ-hVSfZt7vpTnc18DPrw@mail.gmail.com/
      
      Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20230814-memfd-vm-noexec-uapi-fixes-v2-4-7ff9e3e10ba6@cyphar.com
      
      
      Fixes: 105ff533 ("mm/memfd: add MFD_NOEXEC_SEAL and MFD_EXEC")
      Signed-off-by: default avatarAleksa Sarai <cyphar@cyphar.com>
      Cc: Dominique Martinet <asmadeus@codewreck.org>
      Cc: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
      Cc: Daniel Verkamp <dverkamp@chromium.org>
      Cc: Jeff Xu <jeffxu@google.com>
      Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
      Cc: Shuah Khan <shuah@kernel.org>
      Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>
      Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
      9876cfe8
  2. Jun 19, 2023
  3. May 03, 2023
  4. Jan 19, 2023
    • Jeff Xu's avatar
      mm/memfd: add MFD_NOEXEC_SEAL and MFD_EXEC · 105ff533
      Jeff Xu authored
      The new MFD_NOEXEC_SEAL and MFD_EXEC flags allows application to set
      executable bit at creation time (memfd_create).
      
      When MFD_NOEXEC_SEAL is set, memfd is created without executable bit
      (mode:0666), and sealed with F_SEAL_EXEC, so it can't be chmod to be
      executable (mode: 0777) after creation.
      
      when MFD_EXEC flag is set, memfd is created with executable bit
      (mode:0777), this is the same as the old behavior of memfd_create.
      
      The new pid namespaced sysctl vm.memfd_noexec has 3 values:
      0: memfd_create() without MFD_EXEC nor MFD_NOEXEC_SEAL acts like
              MFD_EXEC was set.
      1: memfd_create() without MFD_EXEC nor MFD_NOEXEC_SEAL acts like
              MFD_NOEXEC_SEAL was set.
      2: memfd_create() without MFD_NOEXEC_SEAL will be rejected.
      
      The sysctl allows finer control of memfd_create for old-software that
      doesn't set the executable bit, for example, a container with
      vm.memfd_noexec=1 means the old-software will create non-executable memfd
      by default.  Also, the value of memfd_noexec is passed to child namespace
      at creation time.  For example, if the init namespace has
      vm.memfd_noexec=2, all its children namespaces will be created with 2.
      
      [akpm@linux-foundation.org: add stub functions to fix build]
      [akpm@linux-foundation.org: remove unneeded register_pid_ns_ctl_table_vm() stub, per Jeff]
      [akpm@linux-foundation.org: s/pr_warn_ratelimited/pr_warn_once/, per review]
      [akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix CONFIG_SYSCTL=n warning]
      Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20221215001205.51969-4-jeffxu@google.com
      
      
      Signed-off-by: default avatarJeff Xu <jeffxu@google.com>
      Co-developed-by: default avatarDaniel Verkamp <dverkamp@chromium.org>
      Signed-off-by: default avatarDaniel Verkamp <dverkamp@chromium.org>
      Reported-by: default avatarkernel test robot <lkp@intel.com>
      Reviewed-by: default avatarKees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
      Cc: David Herrmann <dh.herrmann@gmail.com>
      Cc: Dmitry Torokhov <dmitry.torokhov@gmail.com>
      Cc: Hugh Dickins <hughd@google.com>
      Cc: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
      Cc: Jorge Lucangeli Obes <jorgelo@chromium.org>
      Cc: Shuah Khan <skhan@linuxfoundation.org>
      Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
      105ff533
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