Re: [PATCH] all arches, signal: Move restart_block to struct task_struct

Al Viro
2014-10-26T18:09:42Z

On Sun, Oct 26, 2014 at 10:36:45AM -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote:

> I never said it was the *only* juicy target, but we can fix the rest,
> too. Also, I suspect that overwriting task could be harder to
> exploit. First, you need to avoid crashing, and second, on systems
> with SMAP or similar protection, you need to make task point somewhere
> that contains a useful exploit payload.
>
> We could probably get rid of thread_info's task pointer on x86, too --
> it's not used by get_current() any more.

Huh? If you can overwrite that pointer, you can bloody well overwrite
->task itself, making it point into the overwritten part of stack right
next to thread_info.

Again, on most of the architectures the _only_ way to reach task_struct
is via thread_info:
* everything that uses asm-generic/current.h - arm, arm64, blackfin,
c6x, hexagon, metag, mips, openrisc, sh, um, unicore32
* everything that should be using it - alpha, avr32, cris, m32r,
parisc, score, tile. These guys can simply add generic-y += current.h
into their asm/Kbuild and remove asm/current.h.
* nearly the same situation - xtensa (there's an asm variant of
the same thing + copy of asm-generic/current.h for C)
* sparc32
* m68k-noMMU
* mn10300-SMP

It's a strong majority. Check arch/*/asm/current.h and see for yourself.