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| author | Kees Cook <kees+treewide@kernel.org> | 2026-09-02 15:31:14 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org> | 2026-09-04 21:37:00 -0700 |
| commit | 3a2c4d55e32ad65efebdb6de44eef3bfa08bb49d (patch) | |
| tree | c65086f9bdcd48c6360fb7cb4598bca084da1f32 /Documentation/admin-guide/syscall-user-dispatch.rst | |
| download | linux-stable-3a2c4d55e32ad65efebdb6de44eef3bfa08bb49d.tar.gz linux-stable-3a2c4d55e32ad65efebdb6de44eef3bfa08bb49d.zip | |
treewide: refresh kmalloc_obj() conversionsgrafted
This is another run of the Coccinelle script for converting kmalloc()
family of allocations to kmalloc_obj() via the existing rules in
scripts/coccinelle/api/kmalloc_objs.cocci
This catches both the set of kmalloc() uses added since the first
kmalloc_obj() conversions in v7.0 and adds a large group missed in the
first pass due to Coccinelle not interacting well with the cleanup.h
scoped_...() family of macros[1]. I worked around this with spatch's
"--macro-file" argument to a file with all the scoped_...() macros mapped
to Coccinelle's YACFE_ITERATOR[2] as that was the closest viable control
flow indicator I could find.
Build tested allmodconfig on x86, arm64, arm, loongarch, mips, powerpc,
riscv, and s390 with no new warnings.
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/202609021314.8A9C0B8@keescook/ [1]
Link: https://github.com/coccinelle/coccinelle/blob/master/standard.h [2]
Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <kees+treewide@kernel.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/admin-guide/syscall-user-dispatch.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/admin-guide/syscall-user-dispatch.rst | 99 |
1 files changed, 99 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/syscall-user-dispatch.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/syscall-user-dispatch.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..c1768d9e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/syscall-user-dispatch.rst @@ -0,0 +1,99 @@ +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 + +===================== +Syscall User Dispatch +===================== + +Background +---------- + +Compatibility layers like Wine need a way to efficiently emulate system +calls of only a part of their process - the part that has the +incompatible code - while being able to execute native syscalls without +a high performance penalty on the native part of the process. Seccomp +falls short on this task, since it has limited support to efficiently +filter syscalls based on memory regions, and it doesn't support removing +filters. Therefore a new mechanism is necessary. + +Syscall User Dispatch brings the filtering of the syscall dispatcher +address back to userspace. The application is in control of a flip +switch, indicating the current personality of the process. A +multiple-personality application can then flip the switch without +invoking the kernel, when crossing the compatibility layer API +boundaries, to enable/disable the syscall redirection and execute +syscalls directly (disabled) or send them to be emulated in userspace +through a SIGSYS. + +The goal of this design is to provide very quick compatibility layer +boundary crosses, which is achieved by not executing a syscall to change +personality every time the compatibility layer executes. Instead, a +userspace memory region exposed to the kernel indicates the current +personality, and the application simply modifies that variable to +configure the mechanism. + +There is a relatively high cost associated with handling signals on most +architectures, like x86, but at least for Wine, syscalls issued by +native Windows code are currently not known to be a performance problem, +since they are quite rare, at least for modern gaming applications. + +Since this mechanism is designed to capture syscalls issued by +non-native applications, it must function on syscalls whose invocation +ABI is completely unexpected to Linux. Syscall User Dispatch, therefore +doesn't rely on any of the syscall ABI to make the filtering. It uses +only the syscall dispatcher address and the userspace key. + +As the ABI of these intercepted syscalls is unknown to Linux, these +syscalls are not instrumentable via ptrace or the syscall tracepoints. + +Interface +--------- + +A thread can setup this mechanism on supported kernels by executing the +following prctl: + + prctl(PR_SET_SYSCALL_USER_DISPATCH, <op>, <offset>, <length>, [selector]) + +<op> is either PR_SYS_DISPATCH_EXCLUSIVE_ON/PR_SYS_DISPATCH_INCLUSIVE_ON +or PR_SYS_DISPATCH_OFF, to enable and disable the mechanism globally for +that thread. When PR_SYS_DISPATCH_OFF is used, the other fields must be zero. + +For PR_SYS_DISPATCH_EXCLUSIVE_ON [<offset>, <offset>+<length>) delimit +a memory region interval from which syscalls are always executed directly, +regardless of the userspace selector. This provides a fast path for the +C library, which includes the most common syscall dispatchers in the native +code applications, and also provides a way for the signal handler to return +without triggering a nested SIGSYS on (rt\_)sigreturn. Users of this +interface should make sure that at least the signal trampoline code is +included in this region. In addition, for syscalls that implement the +trampoline code on the vDSO, that trampoline is never intercepted. + +For PR_SYS_DISPATCH_INCLUSIVE_ON [<offset>, <offset>+<length>) delimit +a memory region interval from which syscalls are dispatched based on +the userspace selector. Syscalls from outside of the range are always +executed directly. + +[selector] is a pointer to a char-sized region in the process memory +region, that provides a quick way to enable disable syscall redirection +thread-wide, without the need to invoke the kernel directly. selector +can be set to SYSCALL_DISPATCH_FILTER_ALLOW or SYSCALL_DISPATCH_FILTER_BLOCK. +Any other value should terminate the program with a SIGSYS. + +Additionally, a tasks syscall user dispatch configuration can be peeked +and poked via the PTRACE_(GET|SET)_SYSCALL_USER_DISPATCH_CONFIG ptrace +requests. This is useful for checkpoint/restart software. + +Security Notes +-------------- + +Syscall User Dispatch provides functionality for compatibility layers to +quickly capture system calls issued by a non-native part of the +application, while not impacting the Linux native regions of the +process. It is not a mechanism for sandboxing system calls, and it +should not be seen as a security mechanism, since it is trivial for a +malicious application to subvert the mechanism by jumping to an allowed +dispatcher region prior to executing the syscall, or to discover the +address and modify the selector value. If the use case requires any +kind of security sandboxing, Seccomp should be used instead. + +Any fork or exec of the existing process resets the mechanism to +PR_SYS_DISPATCH_OFF. |
