Re: [RFC 0/4] make call_usermodehelper a bit more "safe"

Greg KH
2016-12-20T10:48:38Z

On Tue, Dec 20, 2016 at 11:31:57AM +0100, Jiri Kosina wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Dec 2016, Jiri Kosina wrote:
>
> > I stay totally unconvinced that such kind of countermeasure brings any
> > value whatsoever. Could you please bring up a particular usecase, where
> > you have complete control over kernel memory, and still the only
> > possible exploit factor is redirecting usermodhelper? It feels like
> > rather random shot into darkness.
>
> If we want to make usermod helper really secure, perhaps the best way to
> go would be to completely nuke it and handle everyhting in udev; that'd be
> quite some work though, especially so that we don't break all the corner
> cases of module autoloading (request_module() and such).

In talking about this with others, I like Neil's approach of just
calling out to a statically-defined single binary to handle all of the
specifics. Using something like busybox/toybox to handle any usermode
helper issues would be a very simple way to deal with this on a large
number of systems (i.e. embedded devices / phones / chromebooks).

After I return from vacation, I'll respin this series based on that idea
and repost it.

thanks,

greg k-h