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Message-Id: <A521BCC5-BFAA-47A8-A795-433EBA297F9A@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2017 09:59:15 +0900
From: Hoeun Ryu <hoeun.ryu@...il.com>
To: Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@....com>, Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>
Cc: "kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com" <kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com>,
 Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>, PaX Team <pageexec@...email.hu>,
 Emese Revfy <re.emese@...il.com>, Russell King <linux@...linux.org.uk>,
 X86 ML <x86@...nel.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC][PATCH 4/8] x86: Implement __arch_rare_write_map/unmap()


>> On Mar 1, 2017, at 8:24 PM, Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@....com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 03:52:26PM -0800, Kees Cook wrote:
>>> On Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 2:54 PM, Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net> wrote:
>>> On Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 1:35 PM, Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org> wrote:
>>>>> Can't we at least make this:
>>>>> 
>>>>> struct rare_write_mapping {
>>>>> void *addr;
>>>>> struct arch_rare_write_state arch_state;
>>>>> };
>>>>> 
>>>>> static inline struct rare_write_mapping __arch_rare_write_map(void
>>>>> *addr, size_t len);
>>>>> static inline void __arch_rare_write_unmap(struct rare_write_mapping mapping);
>>>> 
>>>> How do you envision this working with the more complex things I
>>>> included in the latter patches of the series, namely doing linked list
>>>> updates across multiple structure instances, etc?
>>>> 
>>>> ie, poor list manipulation pseudo-code:
>>>> 
>>>> turn off read-only;
>>>> struct_one->next = struct_tree->node;
>>>> struct_three->prev = struct_one->node;
>>>> struct_two->prev = struct_two->next = NULL;
>>>> turn on read-only;
>>>> 
>>>> That's three separate memory areas involved...
>>> 
>>> Fair enough.  That being said, how is this supposed to work on
>>> architectures that don't have a global "disable write protection" bit?
>>> Surely these architectures exist.
>> 
>> I don't know. :) That's part of the reason for putting up this series:
>> looking to see what's possible on other architectures. It's not clear
>> to me what arm64 can do, for example.
> 
> There is no global override of this sort on arm64. Just having map/unap,
> open/close, shed/unshed, etc, won't work.
> 
> The options I can think of for arm64 are:
> 
> * Have a separate RW alias of just the write_rarely data, that we
> temporarily map-in on a given CPU (using TTBR0) to perform the write.
> The RW alias is at a different VA to the usual RO alias, so we have to
> convert each pointer to its RW alias to perform the write. That's why
> we need __rare_write_ptr() to hide this, and can't have uninstrumented
> writes.
> 
> Since this would *only* map the write_rarely data, it's simple to set
> up, and we don't need to modify the tables at runtime.
> 
> I also think we can implement this generically using switch_mm() and
> {get,put}_user(), or specialised variants thereof.
> 
> Assuming we can figure out how to handle those complex cases, this is
> my preferred solution. :)

I implemented RFC version of the option #1 .
It would be appreciated if you could review the code [1].

[1] http://www.openwall.com/lists/kernel-hardening/2017/03/02/5

> 
> * Have a copy of the entire swapper page tables, which differs only in
> the write_rarely data being RW. We then switch TTBR1 over to this for
> the duration of the rare_write_map() .. write_write_unmap() sequence.
> 
> While this sounds conceptually simple, it's far more complex in
> practice. Keeping the not-quite-clone of the swapper in-sync is going
> to be very painful and ripe for error.
> 
> Additionally, the TTBR1 switch will be very expensive, far more so
> than the TTBR0 switch due to TLB maintenance and other work (including
> switching TTBR0 twice per TTBR1 switch, itself requiring synchronised
> TLB maintenance and other work).
> 
> I am not fond of this approach.
> 
> * Give up on this being per-cpu. Either change the permissions in place,
> or fixmap an RW alias as required. In either case, all CPUs will have
> RW access.
> 
> Thanks,
> Mark.

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