[PATCH 5.17 0159/1126] exec: Force single empty string when argv is empty

Greg Kroah-Hartman
2022-04-05T07:53:40Z

From: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>

commit dcd46d897adb70d63e025f175a00a89797d31a43 upstream.

Quoting[1] Ariadne Conill:

"In several other operating systems, it is a hard requirement that the
second argument to execve(2) be the name of a program, thus prohibiting
a scenario where argc < 1. POSIX 2017 also recommends this behaviour,
but it is not an explicit requirement[2]:

The argument arg0 should point to a filename string that is
associated with the process being started by one of the exec
functions.
...
Interestingly, Michael Kerrisk opened an issue about this in 2008[3],
but there was no consensus to support fixing this issue then.
Hopefully now that CVE-2021-4034 shows practical exploitative use[4]
of this bug in a shellcode, we can reconsider.

This issue is being tracked in the KSPP issue tracker[5]."

While the initial code searches[6][7] turned up what appeared to be
mostly corner case tests, trying to that just reject argv == NULL
(or an immediately terminated pointer list) quickly started tripping[8]
existing userspace programs.

The next best approach is forcing a single empty string into argv and
adjusting argc to match. The number of programs depending on argc == 0
seems a smaller set than those calling execve with a NULL argv.

Account for the additional stack space in bprm_stack_limits(). Inject an
empty string when argc == 0 (and set argc = 1). Warn about the case so
userspace has some notice about the change:

process './argc0' launched './argc0' with NULL argv: empty string added

Additionally WARN() and reject NULL argv usage for kernel threads.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220127000724.15106-1-ariadne@dereferenced.org/
[2] https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/exec.html
[3] https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8408
[4] https://www.qualys.com/2022/01/25/cve-2021-4034/pwnkit.txt
[5] https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/176
[6] https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=execve%5C+*%5C%28%5B%5E%2C%5D%2B%2C+*NULL&literal=0
[7] https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=execlp%3F%5Cs*%5C%28%5B%5E%2C%5D%2B%2C%5Cs*NULL&literal=0
[8] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220131144352.GE16385@xsang-OptiPlex-9020/

Reported-by: Ariadne Conill <ariadne@dereferenced.org>
Reported-by: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
Cc: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>
Cc: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
Cc: Rich Felker <dalias@libc.org>
Cc: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Cc: Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Acked-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
Acked-by: Ariadne Conill <ariadne@dereferenced.org>
Acked-by: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220201000947.2453721-1-keescook@chromium.org
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
---
fs/exec.c | 26 +++++++++++++++++++++++++-
1 file changed, 25 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

--- a/fs/exec.c
+++ b/fs/exec.c
@@ -495,8 +495,14 @@ static int bprm_stack_limits(struct linu
* the stack. They aren't stored until much later when we can't
* signal to the parent that the child has run out of stack space.
* Instead, calculate it here so it's possible to fail gracefully.
+ *
+ * In the case of argc = 0, make sure there is space for adding a
+ * empty string (which will bump argc to 1), to ensure confused
+ * userspace programs don't start processing from argv[1], thinking
+ * argc can never be 0, to keep them from walking envp by accident.
+ * See do_execveat_common().
*/
- ptr_size = (bprm->argc + bprm->envc) * sizeof(void *);
+ ptr_size = (max(bprm->argc, 1) + bprm->envc) * sizeof(void *);
if (limit <= ptr_size)
return -E2BIG;
limit -= ptr_size;
@@ -1897,6 +1903,9 @@ static int do_execveat_common(int fd, st
}

retval = count(argv, MAX_ARG_STRINGS);
+ if (retval == 0)
+ pr_warn_once("process '%s' launched '%s' with NULL argv: empty string added\n",
+ current->comm, bprm->filename);
if (retval < 0)
goto out_free;
bprm->argc = retval;
@@ -1923,6 +1932,19 @@ static int do_execveat_common(int fd, st
if (retval < 0)
goto out_free;

+ /*
+ * When argv is empty, add an empty string ("") as argv[0] to
+ * ensure confused userspace programs that start processing
+ * from argv[1] won't end up walking envp. See also
+ * bprm_stack_limits().
+ */
+ if (bprm->argc == 0) {
+ retval = copy_string_kernel("", bprm);
+ if (retval < 0)
+ goto out_free;
+ bprm->argc = 1;
+ }
+
retval = bprm_execve(bprm, fd, filename, flags);
out_free:
free_bprm(bprm);
@@ -1951,6 +1973,8 @@ int kernel_execve(const char *kernel_fil
}

retval = count_strings_kernel(argv);
+ if (WARN_ON_ONCE(retval == 0))
+ retval = -EINVAL;
if (retval < 0)
goto out_free;
bprm->argc = retval;