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Message-ID: <CAGXu5j+OSzYx61-NN8XcBAVvMpCrPc2TFN66esK+-gFQtp_5pg@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2018 13:13:33 -0800
From: Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>
To: Alexander Popov <alex.popov@...ux.com>
Cc: kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com, PaX Team <pageexec@...email.hu>,
Brad Spengler <spender@...ecurity.net>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>, Tycho Andersen <tycho@...ho.ws>, Laura Abbott <labbott@...hat.com>,
Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@....com>, Ard Biesheuvel <ard.biesheuvel@...aro.org>,
Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>, Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>, "H . Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@...llo.nl>, "Dmitry V . Levin" <ldv@...linux.org>, X86 ML <x86@...nel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC v7 0/6] Introduce the STACKLEAK feature and a test for it
On Thu, Jan 18, 2018 at 5:09 AM, Alexander Popov <alex.popov@...ux.com> wrote:
> Hello Kees,
>
> On 17.01.2018 14:37, Alexander Popov wrote:
>> On 15.01.2018 22:59, Kees Cook wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jan 12, 2018 at 6:19 AM, Alexander Popov <alex.popov@...ux.com> wrote:
>>>> This is the 7th version of the patch series introducing STACKLEAK to the
>>>> mainline kernel. STACKLEAK is a security feature developed by Grsecurity/PaX
>>>> (kudos to them), which:
>>>> - reduces the information that can be revealed through kernel stack leak bugs;
>>>> - blocks some uninitialized stack variable attacks (e.g. CVE-2010-2963);
>>>> - introduces some runtime checks for kernel stack overflow detection.
>>>
>>> I think this is really looking good. I had some thoughts while reading
>>> through the patches:
>>>
>>> There are really three features in this series, and it might make
>>> sense to separate them a bit more clearly (at least with CONFIG
>>> choices):
>>>
>>> 1) stack clearing (with depth searching)
>>>
>>> 2) runtime stack depth tracking (making 1 much more efficient)
>>>
>>> 3) alloca checking (an additional feature, not strictly part of
>>> clearing, but needs the same plugin infrastructure)
>>>
>>> It seems like it should be possible to get 1 without 2 and 3 (both of
>>> which happen in the gcc plugin), and might be good to separate for
>>> builds that don't have gcc plugins.
>>>
>>> Once compilers are doing alloca checking (or all VLAs are removed from
>>> the kernel), it'd be nice to be able to avoid the redundancy of 3.
>>
>> Agree with your point. I'll make this separation in the next version.
>
> I have more thoughts about this separation.
>
> Splitting (1) from (2)
> ----------------------
>
> It makes the stack erasing not only slow but also unreliable. For example, an
> attacker can craft some STACKLEAK_POISON values on the thread stack to deceive
> the poison search during the erasing.
>
> Of course, I can increase STACKLEAK_POISON_CHECK_DEPTH or change the default
> value of lowest_stack. It will make the stack erasing even slower, but will not
> give guarantees.
Yeah, that's true. I was hoping the depth check was sufficient.
> So I don't think that (1) without (2) is actually a good feature. I would
> propose to refrain from separating the stack erasing and the lowest_stack tracking.
How about an option to clear the _entire_ stack, then, when the plugin
isn't available? That gives us a range of options and provides an easy
way to compare the performance of the tracking. i.e. can compare off,
full, and smart.
> Splitting (2) and (3)
> ---------------------
>
> The STACKLEAK gcc plugin needs to search for alloca anyway (for the correct
> lowest_stack tracking). But I can introduce the "no-check-alloca" plugin
> parameter for disabling the check_alloca() call insertion.
>
> Is it worth providing something like CONFIG_GCC_PLUGIN_STACKLEAK_NO_CHECK_ALLOCA
> in the Kconfig?
Nah, we can cross that bridge when the compilers have sane alloca checking.
-Kees
--
Kees Cook
Pixel Security
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