[PATCH] block: Add config option to not allow writing to mounted devices

Jan Kara
2023-06-12T16:16:26Z

Writing to mounted devices is dangerous and can lead to filesystem
corruption as well as crashes. Furthermore syzbot comes with more and
more involved examples how to corrupt block device under a mounted
filesystem leading to kernel crashes and reports we can do nothing
about. Add config option to disallow writing to mounted (exclusively
open) block devices. Syzbot can use this option to avoid uninteresting
crashes. Also users whose userspace setup does not need writing to
mounted block devices can set this config option for hardening.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/60788e5d-5c7c-1142-e554-c21d709acfd9@linaro.org
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
---
block/Kconfig | 12 ++++++++++++
block/bdev.c | 10 ++++++++++
include/linux/blk_types.h | 3 +++
3 files changed, 25 insertions(+)

FWIW I've tested this and my test VM with ext4 root fs boots fine and fstests
on ext4 seem to be also running fine with BLK_DEV_WRITE_HARDENING enabled.
OTOH my old VM setup which is not using initrd fails to boot with
BLK_DEV_WRITE_HARDENING enabled because fsck cannot open the root device
because the root is already mounted (read-only). Anyway this should be useful
for syzbot (Dmitry indicated interest in this option in the past) and maybe
other well controlled setups.

diff --git a/block/Kconfig b/block/Kconfig
index 86122e459fe0..c44e2238e18d 100644
--- a/block/Kconfig
+++ b/block/Kconfig
@@ -77,6 +77,18 @@ config BLK_DEV_INTEGRITY_T10
select CRC_T10DIF
select CRC64_ROCKSOFT

+config BLK_DEV_WRITE_HARDENING
+ bool "Do not allow writing to mounted devices"
+ help
+ When a block device is mounted, writing to its buffer cache very likely
+ going to cause filesystem corruption. It is also rather easy to crash
+ the kernel in this way since the filesystem has no practical way of
+ detecting these writes to buffer cache and verifying its metadata
+ integrity. Select this option to disallow writing to mounted devices.
+ This should be mostly fine but some filesystems (e.g. ext4) rely on
+ the ability of filesystem tools to write to mounted filesystems to
+ set e.g. UUID or run fsck on the root filesystem in some setups.
+
config BLK_DEV_ZONED
bool "Zoned block device support"
select MQ_IOSCHED_DEADLINE
diff --git a/block/bdev.c b/block/bdev.c
index 21c63bfef323..ad01f0a6af0d 100644
--- a/block/bdev.c
+++ b/block/bdev.c
@@ -602,6 +602,12 @@ static int blkdev_get_whole(struct block_device *bdev, fmode_t mode)
struct gendisk *disk = bdev->bd_disk;
int ret;

+ if (IS_ENABLED(BLK_DEV_WRITE_HARDENING)) {
+ if (mode & FMODE_EXCL && atomic_read(&bdev->bd_writers) > 0)
+ return -EBUSY;
+ if (mode & FMODE_WRITE && bdev->bd_holders > 0)
+ return -EBUSY;
+ }
if (disk->fops->open) {
ret = disk->fops->open(bdev, mode);
if (ret) {
@@ -617,6 +623,8 @@ static int blkdev_get_whole(struct block_device *bdev, fmode_t mode)
set_init_blocksize(bdev);
if (test_bit(GD_NEED_PART_SCAN, &disk->state))
bdev_disk_changed(disk, false);
+ if (IS_ENABLED(BLK_DEV_WRITE_HARDENING) && mode & FMODE_WRITE)
+ atomic_inc(&bdev->bd_writers);
atomic_inc(&bdev->bd_openers);
return 0;
}
@@ -625,6 +633,8 @@ static void blkdev_put_whole(struct block_device *bdev, fmode_t mode)
{
if (atomic_dec_and_test(&bdev->bd_openers))
blkdev_flush_mapping(bdev);
+ if (IS_ENABLED(BLK_DEV_WRITE_HARDENING) && mode & FMODE_WRITE)
+ atomic_dec(&bdev->bd_writers);
if (bdev->bd_disk->fops->release)
bdev->bd_disk->fops->release(bdev->bd_disk, mode);
}
diff --git a/include/linux/blk_types.h b/include/linux/blk_types.h
index 740afe80f297..25af3340f316 100644
--- a/include/linux/blk_types.h
+++ b/include/linux/blk_types.h
@@ -67,6 +67,9 @@ struct block_device {
struct partition_meta_info *bd_meta_info;
#ifdef CONFIG_FAIL_MAKE_REQUEST
bool bd_make_it_fail;
+#endif
+#ifdef CONFIG_BLK_DEV_WRITE_HARDENING
+ atomic_t bd_writers;
#endif
/*
* keep this out-of-line as it's both big and not needed in the fast
--
2.35.3