Follow @Openwall on Twitter for new release announcements and other news
[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2013 14:19:14 +1100
From: Ryan Mallon <rmallon@...il.com>
To: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>, 
 Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>
CC: Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>, eldad@...refinery.com, 
 Jiri Kosina <jkosina@...e.cz>,
 jgunthorpe@...idianresearch.com, 
 Dan Rosenberg <dan.j.rosenberg@...il.com>,
 Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>, 
 Alexander Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
 George Spelvin <linux@...izon.com>, 
 "kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com" <kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com>,
 "linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3a] vsprintf: Check real user/group id for %pK

On 11/10/13 13:20, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com> writes:
> 
>> Some setuid binaries will allow reading of files which have read
>> permission by the real user id. This is problematic with files which
>> use %pK because the file access permission is checked at open() time,
>> but the kptr_restrict setting is checked at read() time. If a setuid
>> binary opens a %pK file as an unprivileged user, and then elevates
>> permissions before reading the file, then kernel pointer values may be
>> leaked.
>>
>> This happens for example with the setuid pppd application on Ubuntu
>> 12.04:
>>
>>   $ head -1 /proc/kallsyms
>>   00000000 T startup_32
>>
>>   $ pppd file /proc/kallsyms
>>   pppd: In file /proc/kallsyms: unrecognized option 'c1000000'
>>
>> This will only leak the pointer value from the first line, but other
>> setuid binaries may leak more information.
>>
>> Fix this by adding a check that in addition to the current process
>> having CAP_SYSLOG, that effective user and group ids are equal to the
>> real ids. If a setuid binary reads the contents of a file which uses
>> %pK then the pointer values will be printed as NULL if the real user
>> is unprivileged.
>>
>> Update the sysctl documentation to reflect the changes, and also
>> correct the documentation to state the kptr_restrict=0 is the default.
> 
> Sigh.  This is all wrong.  The only correct thing to test is
> file->f_cred.  Aka the capabilities of the program that opened the
> file.
> 
> Which means that the interface to %pK in the case of kptr_restrict is
> broken as it has no way to be passed the information it needs to make
> a sensible decision.

Would it make sense to add a struct file * to struct seq_file and set
that in seq_open? Then the capability check can be done against seq->file.

~Ryan

Powered by blists - more mailing lists

Confused about mailing lists and their use? Read about mailing lists on Wikipedia and check out these guidelines on proper formatting of your messages.