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Message-ID: <20180313045344.GB9027@cisco>
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 22:53:44 -0600
From: Tycho Andersen <tycho@...ho.ws>
To: Salvatore Mesoraca <s.mesoraca16@...il.com>
Cc: "Tobin C. Harding" <tobin@...orbit.com>,
Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>,
Kernel Hardening <kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com>
Subject: Re: VLA commit log
On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 11:28:19AM +0100, Salvatore Mesoraca wrote:
> 2018-03-12 6:26 GMT+01:00 Tobin C. Harding <tobin@...orbit.com>:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I got some push back on the commit log we have all started to use
> > (copying Kees' initial commit log). If we are going to do hundreds of
> > these patches should we write a perfectly correct commit log that can be
> > included as the start of the 'why' of each VLA removal patch? Here is
> > my attempt, I am quite bad at writing commit logs so would love someone
> > to fix it up.
> >
> > Kernel stack size is limited. Variable Length Arrays (VLA) open the
> > kernel up to stack abuse in a couple of ways;
> >
> > 1. If the variable can be controlled by an attacker.
> > 2. Not having the size of the stack right there in plain site makes it
> > harder to maintain the code base because changes in one place can effect
> > the stack in another place (i.e in another function).
> >
> > It would be nice to be able to build the kernel with -Wvla. There has
> > been some consensus on this already [1].
> >
> > ...
> >
> > [1]: https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/3/7/621
> >
> > The '...' would of course be different for each patch. In case you
> > missed it here is the catalyst for this email
> >
> > On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 03:49:40PM +1100, Tobin C. Harding wrote:
> > > The kernel would like to have all stack VLA usage removed[1].
> >
> > Can you please stop writing this? The Linux kernel isn't
> > sentient; it doesn't "like" anything. You need to explain why
> > *you* (and other people) believe these changes should be made.
> >
> >
> > Perhaps we should add a summary of all the gcc discussion i.e why const
> > variables still cause gcc to emit a VLA warning.
>
> Maybe it will be useful to update the doc (e.g.
> Documentation/process/coding-style.rst or a new
> Documentation/process/vla-considered-harmful.rst) with an extensive
> explanation of why VLAs shouldn't be used.
> And then we can just refer to that.
This seems like a great idea. Perhaps we can combine Kees' recent
reply + a link to the original Linus mail into something? There's also
a similar thread from about four months ago when I originally started
looking at this that we could grab stuff from.
Cheers,
Tycho
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