Re: [PATCH v2] proc: allow restricting /proc/pid/mem writes

Christian Brauner
2024-03-04T13:20:28Z

On Fri, Mar 01, 2024 at 11:34:42PM +0200, Adrian Ratiu wrote:
> Prior to v2.6.39 write access to /proc/<pid>/mem was restricted,
> after which it got allowed in commit 198214a7ee50 ("proc: enable
> writing to /proc/pid/mem"). Famous last words from that patch:
> "no longer a security hazard". :)
>
> Afterwards exploits appeared started causing drama like [1]. The
> /proc/*/mem exploits can be rather sophisticated like [2] which
> installed an arbitrary payload from noexec storage into a running
> process then exec'd it, which itself could include an ELF loader
> to run arbitrary code off noexec storage.
>
> As part of hardening against these types of attacks, distrbutions
> can restrict /proc/*/mem to only allow writes when they makes sense,
> like in case of debuggers which have ptrace permissions, as they
> are able to access memory anyway via PTRACE_POKEDATA and friends.
>
> Dropping the mode bits disables write access for non-root users.
> Trying to `chmod` the paths back fails as the kernel rejects it.
>
> For users with CAP_DAC_OVERRIDE (usually just root) we have to
> disable the mem_write callback to avoid bypassing the mode bits.
>
> Writes can be used to bypass permissions on memory maps, even if a
> memory region is mapped r-x (as is a program's executable pages),
> the process can open its own /proc/self/mem file and write to the
> pages directly.
>
> Even if seccomp filters block mmap/mprotect calls with W|X perms,
> they often cannot block open calls as daemons want to read/write
> their own runtime state and seccomp filters cannot check file paths.
> Write calls also can't be blocked in general via seccomp.
>
> Since the mem file is part of the dynamic /proc/<pid>/ space, we
> can't run chmod once at boot to restrict it (and trying to react
> to every process and run chmod doesn't scale, and the kernel no
> longer allows chmod on any of these paths).
>
> SELinux could be used with a rule to cover all /proc/*/mem files,
> but even then having multiple ways to deny an attack is useful in
> case on layer fails.
>
> [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/476947/
> [2] https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40089045
>
> Based on an initial patch by Mike Frysinger <vapier@chromium.org>.
>
> Cc: Guenter Roeck <groeck@chromium.org>
> Cc: Doug Anderson <dianders@chromium.org>
> Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
> Cc: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
> Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
> Cc: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
> Cc: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
> Co-developed-by: Mike Frysinger <vapier@chromium.org>
> Signed-off-by: Mike Frysinger <vapier@chromium.org>
> Signed-off-by: Adrian Ratiu <adrian.ratiu@collabora.com>
> ---
> Changes in v2:
> * Added boot time parameter with default kconfig option
> * Moved check earlier in mem_open() instead of mem_write()
> * Simplified implementation branching
> * Removed dependency on CONFIG_MEMCG
> ---
> .../admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt | 4 ++
> fs/proc/base.c | 47 ++++++++++++++++++-
> security/Kconfig | 22 +++++++++
> 3 files changed, 71 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
> index 460b97a1d0da..0647e2f54248 100644
> --- a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
> @@ -5618,6 +5618,10 @@
> reset_devices [KNL] Force drivers to reset the underlying device
> during initialization.
>
> + restrict_proc_mem_write= [KNL]
> + Enable or disable write access to /proc/*/mem files.
> + Default is SECURITY_PROC_MEM_RESTRICT_WRITE_DEFAULT_ON.
> +
> resume= [SWSUSP]
> Specify the partition device for software suspend
> Format:
> diff --git a/fs/proc/base.c b/fs/proc/base.c
> index 98a031ac2648..92f668191312 100644
> --- a/fs/proc/base.c
> +++ b/fs/proc/base.c
> @@ -152,6 +152,30 @@ struct pid_entry {
> NULL, &proc_pid_attr_operations, \
> { .lsmid = LSMID })
>
> +#ifdef CONFIG_SECURITY_PROC_MEM_RESTRICT_WRITE
> +DEFINE_STATIC_KEY_MAYBE_RO(CONFIG_SECURITY_PROC_MEM_RESTRICT_WRITE_DEFAULT_ON,
> + restrict_proc_mem_write);
> +static int __init early_restrict_proc_mem_write(char *buf)
> +{
> + int ret;
> + bool bool_result;
> +
> + ret = kstrtobool(buf, &bool_result);
> + if (ret)
> + return ret;
> +
> + if (bool_result)
> + static_branch_enable(&restrict_proc_mem_write);
> + else
> + static_branch_disable(&restrict_proc_mem_write);
> + return 0;
> +}
> +early_param("restrict_proc_mem_write", early_restrict_proc_mem_write);
> +# define PROC_PID_MEM_MODE S_IRUSR
> +#else
> +# define PROC_PID_MEM_MODE (S_IRUSR|S_IWUSR)
> +#endif
> +
> /*
> * Count the number of hardlinks for the pid_entry table, excluding the .
> * and .. links.
> @@ -829,6 +853,25 @@ static int mem_open(struct inode *inode, struct file *file)
> {
> int ret = __mem_open(inode, file, PTRACE_MODE_ATTACH);
>
> +#ifdef CONFIG_SECURITY_PROC_MEM_RESTRICT_WRITE
> + struct mm_struct *mm = file->private_data;
> + struct task_struct *task = get_proc_task(inode);
> +
> + if (mm && task) {
> + /* Only allow writes by processes already ptracing the target task */
> + if (file->f_mode & FMODE_WRITE &&
> + static_branch_maybe(CONFIG_SECURITY_PROC_MEM_RESTRICT_WRITE_DEFAULT_ON,
> + &restrict_proc_mem_write)) {
> + rcu_read_lock();
> + if (!ptracer_capable(current, mm->user_ns) ||
> + current != ptrace_parent(task))
> + ret = -EACCES;

Uhm, this will break the seccomp notifier, no? So you can't turn on
SECURITY_PROC_MEM_RESTRICT_WRITE when you want to use the seccomp
notifier to do system call interception and rewrite memory locations of
the calling task, no? Which is very much relied upon in various
container managers and possibly other security tools.

Which means that you can't turn this on in any of the regular distros.

So you need to either account for the calling task being a seccomp
supervisor for the task whose memory it is trying to access or you need
to provide a migration path by adding an api that let's caller's perform
these writes through the seccomp notifier.