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Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2014 10:06:21 +0400
From: Solar Designer <solar@...nwall.com>
To: cve-assign@...re.org
Cc: oss-security@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: Linux-PAM pam_unix/unix_chkpwd is fail-open
Hi,
FWIW, my posting was not a CVE request. It was a suggestion for making
Linux-PAM safer to use.
That said, I appreciate your comments, and I am happy to clarify:
On Fri, Mar 07, 2014 at 11:53:11PM -0500, cve-assign@...re.org wrote:
> (1) part of the PAM software needs to run a helper program by using
> execve
>
> (2) the purpose of the helper program is to check whether a password
> is correct
>
> (3) the helper program is inherently a trusted program (it is under
> the same administrative control as the PAM software)
Correct so far.
> (4) the helper program could use a simple programming model in which
> a zero exit status confirms that the password is correct, and no
> other exit status confirms that
Linux-PAM's helper program does use this programming model, yes. As to
whether this is an acceptable choice, opinions may vary.
> (5) if the helper program is correctly written, and the operating
> system is behaving normally, this programming model is
> sufficient
Sort of. The issue here is that this programming model turns
non-security bugs/peculiarities in multiple parts of the operating system
into security holes, or it may be more appropriate to say that if/when
this happens, this programming model itself is a security hole.
Process termination (or failed startup) may happen for a lot of reasons,
and with this programming model it is sufficient for any one of those to
look like normal termination with zero exit code, for there to be a
vulnerability. For example, does the dynamic linker always exit
non-zero if it fails to start the program up (in one of many ways)?
Do all libc functions that might happen to terminate the program
guarantee a non-zero exit code? And indeed, does the kernel guarantee
indication of abnormal process termination in all the many cases that it
may have to refuse to start or to kill a process? I'd expect bugs of
this nature to be introduced once in a while, and it'd be a pity (and
unjustified risk) for them to be escalated to security bugs via a poorly
chosen programming model in Linux-PAM (or elsewhere, for that matter).
> (6) however, some people feel that this is not good enough.
> Specifically, they feel that the PAM software must have a
> defense against the possibility that the helper program has a
> minor logic error in which it sometimes has an unintended zero
> exit status.
Yes, but mostly not against errors in the (tiny) program itself, but
against errors in the (much larger, more complicated, and changing)
system components that the program's exit code also depends upon.
> (7) there are two examples of ways to have this defense: (A) the
> exit status of the helper program is not used, and instead the
> helper program must print "authorized" or (B) the helper program
> must exit with the status 0x0a00ff7f, which is less likely to
> occur with a logic error
No, (A) and (B) are actually the same. The magic value 0x0a00ff7f is
passed via a file descriptor, just like the "authorized" word is. This
is in addition to the exit status check. (We couldn't pass a value this
large via the exit code.)
> Is (5) above inaccurate? In other words, is the threat model that the
> PAM software is realistically sometimes used on systems in which
> waitpid determines that WIFEXITED was true and WEXITSTATUS was zero,
> even though the actual code path of the helper program provided a
> nonzero exit status? Are we, for example, anticipating kernel bugs or
> hardware bugs that cause this?
Kernel and dynamic linker and libc bugs mostly. With such bugs, the
problem may appear before control would reach one of the helper
program's normal exit() calls.
> If not, then why is 0x0a00ff7f implemented only for this
> interprocess-communication case, and not for in-process function
> calls? In other words, any time that a C program calls a
> security-critical function and tests for a return value of zero,
> shouldn't this be changed to a return value of, for example,
> 0x0a00ff7f? Any function might have a minor logic error in which it
> calls "return;" or reaches the end, even though "return -1" was
> intended.
We obviously need to draw the paranoia line somewhere. The problem
needs to be somewhat likely to occur, the defense likely to be
effective, and the complexity increase affordable and not likely to
cause additional bugs (especially not security bugs).
This approach might be reasonable for some especially critical functions
in a C program as well, but it is less obviously the right thing to do.
If used within a program, it'd protect mostly against different risks -
such as improper use of APIs within the program itself, out of bounds
writes, and/or hardware errors that would otherwise result in fail-open
or otherwise risky behavior. Magic values are in fact sometimes used
within (production builds of) programs.
Also, a function is very unlikely to be made to return control back to
the caller other than through reaching a return statement or the end of
its body. This isn't something the kernel or a libc function would be
likely to cause an application's function to do. In contrast, the
kernel and libc are likely to terminate a process on many conditions.
Here's a test question: was this communication channel meant to carry
security-critical information (as well as possibly other information)?
I think that for C function return values, the answer is "yes", whereas
for process exit status the answer might be "no".
> Going back to the execve case, one downside of the Owl change is that
> a custom helper program designed for another distribution apparently
> has to be modified before it is used on Owl. In other words,
> maintainability is reduced a little, apparently in favor of a
> defense-in-depth security improvement.
Theoretically, yes, although this protocol was and remains internal to
each implementation (Linux-PAM's pam_unix and its helper, or our pam_tcb
and its helper).
> This is not the type of scenario that would typically have a CVE ID.
Yes, I didn't expect it would be.
(I guess a CVE ID would need to be assigned to some piece of software if
this problem is demonstrated in practice on a specific combination of
software versions later.)
Thanks,
Alexander
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