Re: [PATCH 1/4] exec: Fix a deadlock in ptrace

Kees Cook
2020-03-10T21:00:45Z

On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 02:43:41PM +0100, Bernd Edlinger wrote:
> This fixes a deadlock in the tracer when tracing a multi-threaded
> application that calls execve while more than one thread are running.
>
> I observed that when running strace on the gcc test suite, it always
> blocks after a while, when expect calls execve, because other threads
> have to be terminated. They send ptrace events, but the strace is no
> longer able to respond, since it is blocked in vm_access.
>
> The deadlock is always happening when strace needs to access the
> tracees process mmap, while another thread in the tracee starts to
> execve a child process, but that cannot continue until the
> PTRACE_EVENT_EXIT is handled and the WIFEXITED event is received:
>
> strace D 0 30614 30584 0x00000000
> Call Trace:
> __schedule+0x3ce/0x6e0
> schedule+0x5c/0xd0
> schedule_preempt_disabled+0x15/0x20
> __mutex_lock.isra.13+0x1ec/0x520
> __mutex_lock_killable_slowpath+0x13/0x20
> mutex_lock_killable+0x28/0x30
> mm_access+0x27/0xa0
> process_vm_rw_core.isra.3+0xff/0x550
> process_vm_rw+0xdd/0xf0
> __x64_sys_process_vm_readv+0x31/0x40
> do_syscall_64+0x64/0x220
> entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xa9
>
> expect D 0 31933 30876 0x80004003
> Call Trace:
> __schedule+0x3ce/0x6e0
> schedule+0x5c/0xd0
> flush_old_exec+0xc4/0x770
> load_elf_binary+0x35a/0x16c0
> search_binary_handler+0x97/0x1d0
> __do_execve_file.isra.40+0x5d4/0x8a0
> __x64_sys_execve+0x49/0x60
> do_syscall_64+0x64/0x220
> entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xa9
>
> This changes mm_access to use the new exec_update_mutex
> instead of cred_guard_mutex.
>
> This patch is based on the following patch by Eric W. Biederman:
> "[PATCH 0/5] Infrastructure to allow fixing exec deadlocks"
> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/87v9ne5y4y.fsf_-_@x220.int.ebiederm.org/
>
> Signed-off-by: Bernd Edlinger <bernd.edlinger@hotmail.de>

Cool, yes, on top of the new infrastructure this looks correct to me --
the new mutex wraps mm changes and mm_access() is looking at *drum roll*
the mm! :)

Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>

-Kees

> ---
> kernel/fork.c | 4 ++--
> 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/kernel/fork.c b/kernel/fork.c
> index c12595a..5720ff3 100644
> --- a/kernel/fork.c
> +++ b/kernel/fork.c
> @@ -1224,7 +1224,7 @@ struct mm_struct *mm_access(struct task_struct *task, unsigned int mode)
> struct mm_struct *mm;
> int err;
>
> - err = mutex_lock_killable(&task->signal->cred_guard_mutex);
> + err = mutex_lock_killable(&task->signal->exec_update_mutex);
> if (err)
> return ERR_PTR(err);
>
> @@ -1234,7 +1234,7 @@ struct mm_struct *mm_access(struct task_struct *task, unsigned int mode)
> mmput(mm);
> mm = ERR_PTR(-EACCES);
> }
> - mutex_unlock(&task->signal->cred_guard_mutex);
> + mutex_unlock(&task->signal->exec_update_mutex);
>
> return mm;
> }
> --
> 1.9.1

--
Kees Cook