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| author | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> | 2026-08-30 09:22:00 -0700 |
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| committer | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> | 2026-08-30 09:22:00 -0700 |
| commit | 034dd340b08be1f2f0477ad16131d609f9dbd53c (patch) | |
| tree | 2536f4b2d7893ccd916b5abdf3c454ad6edc03c2 /Documentation/userspace-api/mseal.rst | |
| download | linux-stable-034dd340b08be1f2f0477ad16131d609f9dbd53c.tar.gz linux-stable-034dd340b08be1f2f0477ad16131d609f9dbd53c.zip | |
Merge tag 'trace-v7.3-2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/trace/linux-tracegrafted
Pull tracing fixes from Steven Rostedt:
- Fix error output of boot instance creation failure
Currently if a boot instance creation fails, instead of printing out
the name of the instance that failed, it prints "(null)". That is
because it prints "cur_str" that had already been processed by
strsep(). Print the saved name instead.
While at it, print the error code of the failure.
- Fix use-after-free for same named historgrams
Histograms can be named so that they can be used in multiple events.
But if the named histogram has a variable attached, the second event
that uses the named histogram which duplicates it and needs to free
the original after duplication leaves the old variable in place and
still visible. If another histogram uses than variable, it will use
the stale one which will try to reference the freed duplicate
histogram and crash the kernel.
Free the duplicate variables along with the duplicated histogram
data.
- Check return value of kthread_run() in event self test
The events self tests uses a kthread for testing but does not check
if it succeeded in creating a kthread. If the kthread creation were
to fail, the code will still try to call kthread_stop() on the error
returned.
- Fix race between reading trace_pipe and updating subbuffer size
If a user is reading the trace_pipe file at the same time they update
the ring buffer sub-buffer size, can cause the trace_pipe read to
read stale data. Add trace_access_lock() around updating the ring
buffer sub-buffer size.
- Fix eventfs_inode on failure path in creation of the events directory
In the creation of the "events" directory, if after allocating the
eventfs_inode a failure is detected, it calls cleanup_ei() which
calls free_ei(). The free_ei() will test if eventfs_inode being freed
has no children. It is a bug if it does. But on the failure case of
the creation of the "events" directory, the children lists have not
yet been initialized and the free will trigger a warning because
list_empty() on an uninitialized list returns false.
Move the initialization into init_ei() where it makes more sense and
makes sure that a created eventfs_inode has its lists initialized
upon creation.
- Check return value of kthread_run() in ftrace direct sample code
The sample code that shows how to use the ftrace direct calls does
not test the return of kthread_run() to see if it succeeds. Return a
failure if the kthread_run() doesn't succeed.
- Clear user events state on fork in case of alloc failure
On fork, the child gets a pointer to the parent's user events state.
It makes a copy of it then updates the child's pointer to it. But if
the allocation fails, the duplication function leaves the child with
a pointer to its parent's descriptor. When the child cleans up its
data, it will free the parent's descriptor while the parent is still
using it.
In the duplication function, set the child's user_event_mm to NULL
before testing if the allocation succeeded, and when it exits it will
not free the parent's descriptor.
- Fix retry exhaustion in simple ring buffer reader swap
simple_ring_buffer_swap_reader_page() starts with retry set to 8 and
post-decrements it only after a failed link replacement. On the final
attempt, a successful replacement leaves retry at zero, while a
failed replacement leaves it at -1.
But the check for success expects the retry value to be non-zero and
exits with an error on zero. This is the opposite result. Fix it.
- Fail nicely when the remote swap_reader_page() returns an error
Currently, if the swap_reader_page() of a remote buffer fails, it
triggers a WARN_ON_ONCE() and continues normally. Instead, have it
exit with an error and a pr_warn() print instead of a full WARNING.
* tag 'trace-v7.3-2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/trace/linux-trace:
ring-buffer: Stop remote reader update when page swap fails
tracing: Fix retry exhaustion in simple ring buffer reader swap
tracing/user_events: Clear copied tracing state before fork duplication
samples/ftrace: Fix kthread_stop() on ERR_PTR in ftrace-direct-multi-modify
samples/ftrace: Fix kthread_stop() on ERR_PTR in ftrace-direct-modify
eventfs: Initialize ei->children and ei->list in init_ei()
tracing: Fix use-after-free in trace_pipe read on sub-buffer order change
tracing: Fix crash passing ERR_PTR to kthread_stop()
tracing: Fix use-after-free with same-name named triggers
tracing: Fix logged instance name on creation failure
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/userspace-api/mseal.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/userspace-api/mseal.rst | 207 |
1 files changed, 207 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/userspace-api/mseal.rst b/Documentation/userspace-api/mseal.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..c039d782f --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/userspace-api/mseal.rst @@ -0,0 +1,207 @@ +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 + +===================== +Introduction of mseal +===================== + +:Author: Jeff Xu <jeffxu@chromium.org> + +Modern CPUs support memory permissions such as RW and NX bits. The memory +permission feature improves security stance on memory corruption bugs, i.e. +the attacker can’t just write to arbitrary memory and point the code to it, +the memory has to be marked with X bit, or else an exception will happen. + +Memory sealing additionally protects the mapping itself against +modifications. This is useful to mitigate memory corruption issues where a +corrupted pointer is passed to a memory management system. For example, +such an attacker primitive can break control-flow integrity guarantees +since read-only memory that is supposed to be trusted can become writable +or .text pages can get remapped. Memory sealing can automatically be +applied by the runtime loader to seal .text and .rodata pages and +applications can additionally seal security critical data at runtime. + +A similar feature already exists in the XNU kernel with the +VM_FLAGS_PERMANENT flag [1] and on OpenBSD with the mimmutable syscall [2]. + +SYSCALL +======= +mseal syscall signature +----------------------- + ``int mseal(void *addr, size_t len, unsigned long flags)`` + + **addr**/**len**: virtual memory address range. + The address range set by **addr**/**len** must meet: + - The start address must be in an allocated VMA. + - The start address must be page aligned. + - The end address (**addr** + **len**) must be in an allocated VMA. + - no gap (unallocated memory) between start and end address. + + The ``len`` will be paged aligned implicitly by the kernel. + + **flags**: reserved for future use. + + **Return values**: + - **0**: Success. + - **-EINVAL**: + * Invalid input ``flags``. + * The start address (``addr``) is not page aligned. + * Address range (``addr`` + ``len``) overflow. + - **-ENOMEM**: + * The start address (``addr``) is not allocated. + * The end address (``addr`` + ``len``) is not allocated. + * A gap (unallocated memory) between start and end address. + - **-ENOSYS**: + * The kernel does not implement ``mseal()``. + + **Note about error return**: + - For above error cases, users can expect the given memory range is + unmodified, i.e. no partial update. + - There might be other internal errors/cases not listed here, e.g. + error during merging/splitting VMAs, or the process reaching the maximum + number of supported VMAs. In those cases, partial updates to the given + memory range could happen. However, those cases should be rare. + + **Architecture support**: + mseal is built only for 64-bit kernels. 32-bit kernels return + ``-ENOSYS``. + + **Idempotent**: + users can call mseal multiple times. mseal on an already sealed memory + is a no-action (not error). + + **no munseal** + Once mapping is sealed, it can't be unsealed. The kernel should never + have munseal, this is consistent with other sealing feature, e.g. + F_SEAL_SEAL for file. + +Blocked mm syscall for sealed mapping +------------------------------------- + It might be important to note: **once the mapping is sealed, it will + stay in the process's memory until the process terminates**. + + Example:: + + *ptr = mmap(0, 4096, PROT_READ, MAP_ANONYMOUS | MAP_PRIVATE, 0, 0); + rc = mseal(ptr, 4096, 0); + /* munmap will fail */ + rc = munmap(ptr, 4096); + assert(rc < 0); + + Blocked mm syscall: + - munmap + - mmap + - mremap + - mprotect and pkey_mprotect + - some destructive madvise behaviors: MADV_DONTNEED, MADV_FREE, + MADV_DONTNEED_LOCKED, MADV_FREE, MADV_DONTFORK, MADV_WIPEONFORK + + The first set of syscalls to block is munmap, mremap, mmap. They can + either leave an empty space in the address space, therefore allowing + replacement with a new mapping with new set of attributes, or can + overwrite the existing mapping with another mapping. + + mprotect and pkey_mprotect are blocked because they changes the + protection bits (RWX) of the mapping. + + Certain destructive madvise behaviors, specifically MADV_DONTNEED, + MADV_FREE, MADV_DONTNEED_LOCKED, and MADV_WIPEONFORK, can introduce + risks when applied to anonymous memory by threads lacking write + permissions. Consequently, these operations are prohibited under such + conditions. The aforementioned behaviors have the potential to modify + region contents by discarding pages, effectively performing a memset(0) + operation on the anonymous memory. + + Kernel will return -EPERM for blocked syscalls. + + When blocked syscall return -EPERM due to sealing, the memory regions may + or may not be changed, depends on the syscall being blocked: + + - munmap: munmap is atomic. If one of VMAs in the given range is + sealed, none of VMAs are updated. + - mprotect, pkey_mprotect, madvise: partial update might happen, e.g. + when mprotect over multiple VMAs, mprotect might update the beginning + VMAs before reaching the sealed VMA and return -EPERM. + - mmap and mremap: undefined behavior. + +Use cases +========= +- glibc: + The dynamic linker, during loading ELF executables, can apply sealing to + mapping segments. + +- Chrome browser: protect some security sensitive data structures. + +- System mappings: + The system mappings are created by the kernel and include vdso, vvar, + vvar_vclock, vectors (arm compat-mode), sigpage (arm compat-mode), uprobes. + + Those system mappings are readonly only or execute only, memory sealing can + protect them from ever changing to writable or unmapped/remapped as different + attributes. This is useful to mitigate memory corruption issues where a + corrupted pointer is passed to a memory management system. + + If supported by an architecture (CONFIG_ARCH_SUPPORTS_MSEAL_SYSTEM_MAPPINGS), + the CONFIG_MSEAL_SYSTEM_MAPPINGS seals all system mappings of this + architecture. + + WARNING: This feature breaks programs which rely on relocating + or unmapping system mappings. Known broken software at the time + of writing includes CHECKPOINT_RESTORE, UML, gVisor, rr. Therefore + this config can't be enabled universally. + +When not to use mseal +===================== +Applications can apply sealing to any virtual memory region from userspace, +but it is *crucial to thoroughly analyze the mapping's lifetime* prior to +apply the sealing. This is because the sealed mapping *won’t be unmapped* +until the process terminates or the exec system call is invoked. + +For example: + - aio/shm + aio/shm can call mmap and munmap on behalf of userspace, e.g. + ksys_shmdt() in shm.c. The lifetimes of those mapping are not tied to + the lifetime of the process. If those memories are sealed from userspace, + then munmap will fail, causing leaks in VMA address space during the + lifetime of the process. + + - ptr allocated by malloc (heap) + Don't use mseal on the memory ptr return from malloc(). + malloc() is implemented by allocator, e.g. by glibc. Heap manager might + allocate a ptr from brk or mapping created by mmap. + If an app calls mseal on a ptr returned from malloc(), this can affect + the heap manager's ability to manage the mappings; the outcome is + non-deterministic. + + Example:: + + ptr = malloc(size); + /* don't call mseal on ptr return from malloc. */ + mseal(ptr, size); + /* free will success, allocator can't shrink heap lower than ptr */ + free(ptr); + +mseal doesn't block +=================== +In a nutshell, mseal blocks certain mm syscall from modifying some of VMA's +attributes, such as protection bits (RWX). Sealed mappings doesn't mean the +memory is immutable. + +As Jann Horn pointed out in [3], there are still a few ways to write +to RO memory, which is, in a way, by design. And those could be blocked +by different security measures. + +Those cases are: + + - Write to read-only memory through /proc/self/mem interface (FOLL_FORCE). + - Write to read-only memory through ptrace (such as PTRACE_POKETEXT). + - userfaultfd. + +The idea that inspired this patch comes from Stephen Röttger’s work in V8 +CFI [4]. Chrome browser in ChromeOS will be the first user of this API. + +Reference +========= +- [1] https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu/blob/1031c584a5e37aff177559b9f69dbd3c8c3fd30a/osfmk/mach/vm_statistics.h#L274 +- [2] https://man.openbsd.org/mimmutable.2 +- [3] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAG48ez3ShUYey+ZAFsU2i1RpQn0a5eOs2hzQ426FkcgnfUGLvA@mail.gmail.com +- [4] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O2jwK4dxI3nRcOJuPYkonhTkNQfbmwdvxQMyXgeaRHo/edit#heading=h.bvaojj9fu6hc |
