Re: [PATCH 1/6] fs/exec: Drop task_lock() inside __get_task_comm()

Alexei Starovoitov
2024-06-02T16:35:32Z

On Sat, Jun 1, 2024 at 11:57 PM Yafang Shao <laoar.shao@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Jun 2, 2024 at 11:52 AM Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com> wrote:
> >
> > Yafang Shao <laoar.shao@gmail.com> writes:
> >
> > > Quoted from Linus [0]:
> > >
> > > Since user space can randomly change their names anyway, using locking
> > > was always wrong for readers (for writers it probably does make sense
> > > to have some lock - although practically speaking nobody cares there
> > > either, but at least for a writer some kind of race could have
> > > long-term mixed results
> >
> > Ugh.
> > Ick.
> >
> > This code is buggy.
> >
> > I won't argue that Linus is wrong, about removing the
> > task_lock.
> >
> > Unfortunately strscpy_pad does not work properly with the
> > task_lock removed, and buf_size larger that TASK_COMM_LEN.
> > There is a race that will allow reading past the end
> > of tsk->comm, if we read while tsk->common is being
> > updated.
>
> It appears so. Thanks for pointing it out. Additionally, other code,
> such as the BPF helper bpf_get_current_comm(), also uses strscpy_pad()
> directly without the task_lock. It seems we should change that as
> well.

Hmm. What race do you see?
If lock is removed from __get_task_comm() it probably can be removed from
__set_task_comm() as well.
And both are calling strscpy_pad to write and read comm.
So I don't see how it would read past sizeof(comm),
because 'buf' passed into __set_task_comm is NUL-terminated.
So the concurrent read will find it.

> >
> > So __get_task_comm needs to look something like:
> >
> > char *__get_task_comm(char *buf, size_t buf_size, struct task_struct *tsk)
> > {
> > size_t len = buf_size;
> > if (len > TASK_COMM_LEN)
> > len = TASK_COMM_LEN;
> > memcpy(buf, tsk->comm, len);
> > buf[len -1] = '\0';
> > return buf;
> > }
>
> Thanks for your suggestion.
>
> >
> > What shows up in buf past the '\0' is not guaranteed in the above
> > version but I would be surprised if anyone cares.
>
> I believe we pad it to prevent the leakage of kernel data. In this
> case, since no kernel data will be leaked, the following change may be
> unnecessary.

It's not about leaking of kernel data, but more about not writing
garbage past NUL.
Because comm[] is a part of some record that is used as a key
in a hash map.