Re: [Cbe-oss-dev] [PATCH] powerpc/spufs: Fix incorrect buffer offset in regs write

[Jeremy Kerr <jk@ozlabs.org>]

Hi Geert,

> Could this be abused by an attacker to write registers or local store
> he's not allowed to do?

It looks like the user can only overwrite fields that it already has 
access to. There's struct spu_lscsa:

struct spu_lscsa {
	struct spu_reg128 gprs[128];
	struct spu_reg128 fpcr;
	struct spu_reg128 decr;
	struct spu_reg128 decr_status;
	struct spu_reg128 ppu_mb;
	struct spu_reg128 ppuint_mb;
	struct spu_reg128 tag_mask;
	struct spu_reg128 event_mask;
	struct spu_reg128 srr0;
	struct spu_reg128 stopped_status;
	unsigned char ls[LS_SIZE] __attribute__((aligned(65536)));
};

where spu_reg128 is a u32[4].

The maximum 'allowed' write offset to the regs file is 2047. The 
(incorrect) maximum offset calculated by the old code would be 8188 
(2047 * 4) bytes into struct spu_lscsa.

So, 8188 bytes covers all of the registers, but ends somewhere before 
the start of the ls area (within the ls alignment padding). Let's look 
at the registers:

gprs:			user-writable
fpcr:			user-writable
decr:			user-writable
decr_status:	only affects user-settable SPE state
ppu_mb:		only affects user-settable SPE state
ppuint_mb:		only affects user-settable SPE state
tag_mask:		only affects user-settable SPE state
event_mask:	only affects user-settable SPE state
srr0:			only affects user-settable SPE state
stopped_status: only affects user-settable SPE state

So, I think we're fine. All a user can do with this bug is mess up their 
own SPE state.

> Should it be backported to stable?

Yes, I'll submit to the stable tree too.

Cheers,


Jeremy