Re: [PATCH v2] perf header: Validate build_id filename length to prevent buffer overflow

Ian Rogers
2026-04-01T22:12:19Z

On Wed, Apr 1, 2026 at 2:53 PM SeungJu Cheon <suunj1331@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The build_id parsing functions calculate a filename length from the
> event header size and read directly into a stack buffer of PATH_MAX
> bytes without bounds checking. A malformed perf.data file with a
> crafted header.size can cause the length to be negative or exceed
> PATH_MAX, resulting in a stack buffer overflow.
>
> Add bounds checking for the filename length in both
> perf_header__read_build_ids() and the ABI quirk variant. Print a
> warning message when invalid length is detected.
>
> Signed-off-by: SeungJu Cheon <suunj1331@gmail.com>

Reviewed-by: Ian Rogers <irogers@google.com>

Thanks,
Ian

> ---
> v2:
> - Add warning message when invalid filename length detected
> ---
> tools/perf/util/header.c | 10 ++++++++++
> 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/tools/perf/util/header.c b/tools/perf/util/header.c
> index 9142a8ba4019..132d360d716a 100644
> --- a/tools/perf/util/header.c
> +++ b/tools/perf/util/header.c
> @@ -2545,6 +2545,11 @@ static int perf_header__read_build_ids_abi_quirk(struct perf_header *header,
> perf_event_header__bswap(&old_bev.header);
>
> len = old_bev.header.size - sizeof(old_bev);
> + if (len < 0 || len >= PATH_MAX) {
> + pr_warning("invalid build_id filename length %d\n", len);
> + return -1;
> + }
> +
> if (readn(input, filename, len) != len)
> return -1;
>
> @@ -2587,6 +2592,11 @@ static int perf_header__read_build_ids(struct perf_header *header,
> perf_event_header__bswap(&bev.header);
>
> len = bev.header.size - sizeof(bev);
> + if (len < 0 || len >= PATH_MAX) {
> + pr_warning("invalid build_id filename length %d\n", len);
> + goto out;
> + }
> +
> if (readn(input, filename, len) != len)
> goto out;
> /*
> --
> 2.52.0
>