From cefdca0a86be517bc390fc4541e3674b8e7803b0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Peter Xu Date: Mon, 13 May 2019 17:16:41 -0700 Subject: userfaultfd/sysctl: add vm.unprivileged_userfaultfd Userfaultfd can be misued to make it easier to exploit existing use-after-free (and similar) bugs that might otherwise only make a short window or race condition available. By using userfaultfd to stall a kernel thread, a malicious program can keep some state that it wrote, stable for an extended period, which it can then access using an existing exploit. While it doesn't cause the exploit itself, and while it's not the only thing that can stall a kernel thread when accessing a memory location, it's one of the few that never needs privilege. We can add a flag, allowing userfaultfd to be restricted, so that in general it won't be useable by arbitrary user programs, but in environments that require userfaultfd it can be turned back on. Add a global sysctl knob "vm.unprivileged_userfaultfd" to control whether userfaultfd is allowed by unprivileged users. When this is set to zero, only privileged users (root user, or users with the CAP_SYS_PTRACE capability) will be able to use the userfaultfd syscalls. Andrea said: : The only difference between the bpf sysctl and the userfaultfd sysctl : this way is that the bpf sysctl adds the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability : requirement, while userfaultfd adds the CAP_SYS_PTRACE requirement, : because the userfaultfd monitor is more likely to need CAP_SYS_PTRACE : already if it's doing other kind of tracking on processes runtime, in : addition of userfaultfd. In other words both syscalls works only for : root, when the two sysctl are opt-in set to 1. [dgilbert@redhat.com: changelog additions] [akpm@linux-foundation.org: documentation tweak, per Mike] Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20190319030722.12441-2-peterx@redhat.com Signed-off-by: Peter Xu Suggested-by: Andrea Arcangeli Suggested-by: Mike Rapoport Reviewed-by: Mike Rapoport Reviewed-by: Andrea Arcangeli Cc: Paolo Bonzini Cc: Hugh Dickins Cc: Luis Chamberlain Cc: Maxime Coquelin Cc: Maya Gokhale Cc: Jerome Glisse Cc: Pavel Emelyanov Cc: Johannes Weiner Cc: Martin Cracauer Cc: Denis Plotnikov Cc: Marty McFadden Cc: Mike Kravetz Cc: Kees Cook Cc: Mel Gorman Cc: "Kirill A . Shutemov" Cc: "Dr . David Alan Gilbert" Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds --- Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt | 12 ++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+) (limited to 'Documentation') diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt index 3f13d8599337..749322060f10 100644 --- a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt +++ b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt @@ -61,6 +61,7 @@ Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/vm: - stat_refresh - numa_stat - swappiness +- unprivileged_userfaultfd - user_reserve_kbytes - vfs_cache_pressure - watermark_boost_factor @@ -818,6 +819,17 @@ The default value is 60. ============================================================== +unprivileged_userfaultfd + +This flag controls whether unprivileged users can use the userfaultfd +system calls. Set this to 1 to allow unprivileged users to use the +userfaultfd system calls, or set this to 0 to restrict userfaultfd to only +privileged users (with SYS_CAP_PTRACE capability). + +The default value is 1. + +============================================================== + - user_reserve_kbytes When overcommit_memory is set to 2, "never overcommit" mode, reserve -- cgit v1.2.3