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Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2018 11:42:35 -0800
From: Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>
To: Daniel Micay <danielmicay@...il.com>
Cc: Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>, linux-mm@...ck.org,
Kernel Hardening <kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com>,
kernel list <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
"Kirill A. Shutemov" <kirill.shutemov@...ux.intel.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC] Warn the user when they could overflow mapcount
On Thu, Feb 08, 2018 at 02:33:58PM -0500, Daniel Micay wrote:
> I don't think the kernel can get away with the current approach.
> Object sizes and counts on 64-bit should be 64-bit unless there's a
> verifiable reason they can get away with 32-bit. Having it use leak
> memory isn't okay, just much less bad than vulnerabilities exploitable
> beyond just denial of service.
>
> Every 32-bit reference count should probably have a short comment
> explaining why it can't overflow on 64-bit... if that can't be written
> or it's too complicated to demonstrate, it probably needs to be
> 64-bit. It's one of many pervasive forms of integer overflows in the
> kernel... :(
Expanding _mapcount to 64-bit, and for that matter expanding _refcount
to 64-bit too is going to have a severe effect on memory consumption.
It'll take an extra 8 bytes per page of memory in your system, so 2GB
for a machine with 1TB memory (earlier we established this attack isn't
feasible for a machine with less than 1TB).
It's not something a user is going to hit accidentally; it is only
relevant to an attack scenario. That's a lot of memory to sacrifice to
defray this attack. I think we should be able to do better.
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