Re: [PATCH] yama: don't abuse rcu_read_lock/get_task_struct in yama_task_prctl()

Oleg Nesterov
2025-02-19T20:18:23Z

On 02/19, Kees Cook wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 19, 2025 at 05:14:17PM +0100, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
> > current->group_leader is stable, no need to take rcu_read_lock() and do
> > get/put_task_struct().
>
> Can you explain why this is true? In trying to figure this out again,
> it seems that the only way current->group_leader can vanish is if
> the entire process vanishes (fork or thread exec), in which case the
> "current" in this prctl can't be happening; this appears to be locked
> behind tsk->sighand->siglock ?

Well, almost, but this has nothing to do with tsk->sighand->siglock...

task->group_leader can only be changed by thread exec, when a non leader
thread does exec, see de_thread(). But de_thread() can't succeed and change
->group_leader until all other threads exit, see the "Kill all other threads
in the thread group" code in de_thread(). The "current" task can't exit, so
current->group_leader is stable.

Note also that we already have a lot of current->group_leader users which
don't use rcu/get_task_struct.

That said, we have a lot of buggy users of tsk->group_leader when
same_thread_group(tsk, current) != true ;) For example, sys_prlimit64().
And note that rcu_read_lock/get_task_struct can't help in this case.
I am going to send some fixes.

Oleg.

>
> -Kees
>
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
> > ---
> > security/yama/yama_lsm.c | 9 ++-------
> > 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/security/yama/yama_lsm.c b/security/yama/yama_lsm.c
> > index 1971710620c1..3d064dd4e03f 100644
> > --- a/security/yama/yama_lsm.c
> > +++ b/security/yama/yama_lsm.c
> > @@ -222,7 +222,7 @@ static int yama_task_prctl(int option, unsigned long arg2, unsigned long arg3,
> > unsigned long arg4, unsigned long arg5)
> > {
> > int rc = -ENOSYS;
> > - struct task_struct *myself = current;
> > + struct task_struct *myself;
> >
> > switch (option) {
> > case PR_SET_PTRACER:
> > @@ -232,11 +232,7 @@ static int yama_task_prctl(int option, unsigned long arg2, unsigned long arg3,
> > * leader checking is handled later when walking the ancestry
> > * at the time of PTRACE_ATTACH check.
> > */
> > - rcu_read_lock();
> > - if (!thread_group_leader(myself))
> > - myself = rcu_dereference(myself->group_leader);
> > - get_task_struct(myself);
> > - rcu_read_unlock();
> > + myself = current->group_leader;
> >
> > if (arg2 == 0) {
> > yama_ptracer_del(NULL, myself);
> > @@ -255,7 +251,6 @@ static int yama_task_prctl(int option, unsigned long arg2, unsigned long arg3,
> > }
> > }
> >
> > - put_task_struct(myself);
> > break;
> > }
> >
> > --
> > 2.25.1.362.g51ebf55
> >
> >
>
> --
> Kees Cook
>