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Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2015 22:34:37 +0100
From: Emese Revfy <re.emese@...il.com>
To: Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>
Cc: "kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com"
<kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com>, PaX Team <pageexec@...email.hu>,
Brad Spengler <spender@...ecurity.net>, Greg KH
<gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>, Theodore Tso <tytso@...gle.com>, Josh
Triplett <josh@...htriplett.org>
Subject: Re: Proposal for kernel self protection features
> > * size_overflow_hash_aux: For out-of-tree modules.
>
> By out-of-tree, you mean built-out-of-tree? I assume a future
I mean out-of-tree modules e.g., zfs. But the gcc infrastructure
in PaX also supports built-out-of-tree and cross compilation.
> downstream kernel that used size_overflow would have their
> non-upstream code covered during the size_overflow_hash regeneration?
> (Though they'd be on the their own for handling the false positives.)
Yes, everybody can regenerate the hash table (the plugin prints out a message
about missing entries that I parse with a python script). I store functions
from out-of-tree modules in a separate hash table because we don't regenerate it
for every kernel version.
> > * gcc intentional overflow: gcc computes some expressions by overflow
> > when it optimizes. Sadly it is doing this in the front end where
> > there is no plugin support. Most of these false positives I handle
> > from the plugin or sometimes I patch the kernel source code.
> > There are some unsolved issues.
>
> Has there been any discussion with gcc folks about this problem?
I never tried it. PaXTeam has some open tickets
(e.g., https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=61311) for a long time so
because of it I haven't any courage.
> > * structleak: This plugin forcibly initializes certain local variables
> > based on the __user attribute that could otherwise leak kernel stack
> > to userland if they aren't properly initialized by later code.
> > It has small performance loss.
>
> Does this operate only on kernel stack structures?
Yes, it does but the coverage can be increased.
> > I think the first plugin can be a simpler plugin e.g., constify or latent_entropy.
> > Please let me know if you want one, more or all of them.
>
> Well I would love to see all of them upstream. :) As for first steps,
> you've convinced me about the complexity of the size_overflow plugin.
> Perhaps the constify plugin would be a good first target? Can you
Yes, I agree.
> speak to any known bugs it stopped? Having some mention of the threat
> it mitigates would be helpful. (Do I remember correctly that it
> constified security_operations, which was a common target in
> exploits?)
I don't remember any bugs, but I think spender has some exploits that
are stopped by constification :) The constify plugin stops exploits that
want to modify ops structures to control indirect calls through them.
--
Emese
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