Re: [Linux-kernel-mentees] [PATCH net] rds: Prevent kernel-infoleak in rds_notify_queue_get()

Jason Gunthorpe
2020-07-31T14:04:57Z

On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 07:33:33AM +0200, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 07:33:06AM +0200, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> > On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 07:53:01AM +0300, Leon Romanovsky wrote:
> > > On Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 03:20:26PM -0400, Peilin Ye wrote:
> > > > rds_notify_queue_get() is potentially copying uninitialized kernel stack
> > > > memory to userspace since the compiler may leave a 4-byte hole at the end
> > > > of `cmsg`.
> > > >
> > > > In 2016 we tried to fix this issue by doing `= { 0 };` on `cmsg`, which
> > > > unfortunately does not always initialize that 4-byte hole. Fix it by using
> > > > memset() instead.
> > >
> > > Of course, this is the difference between "{ 0 }" and "{}" initializations.
> >
> > Really? Neither will handle structures with holes in it, try it and
> > see.
>
> And if true, where in the C spec does it say that?

The spec was updated in C11 to require zero'ing padding when doing
partial initialization of aggregates (eg = {})

"""if it is an aggregate, every member is initialized (recursively)
according to these rules, and any padding is initialized to zero
bits;"""

The difference between {0} and the {} extension is only that {}
reliably triggers partial initialization for all kinds of aggregates,
while {0} has a number of edge cases where it can fail to compile.

IIRC gcc has cleared the padding during aggregate initialization for a
long time. Considering we have thousands of aggregate initializers it
seems likely to me Linux also requires a compiler with this C11
behavior to operate correctly.

Does this patch actually fix anything? My compiler generates identical
assembly code in either case.

Jason