[PATCH v9 14/15] Documentation: add documentation for FG-KASLR

Alexander Lobakin
2021-12-23T00:24:19Z

From: Kristen Carlson Accardi <kristen@linux.intel.com>

Describe the main principles behind the FG-KASLR hardening feature
in a new doc section.

Signed-off-by: Kristen Carlson Accardi <kristen@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Alexander Lobakin <alexandr.lobakin@intel.com>
---
.../admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt | 6 +
Documentation/security/fgkaslr.rst | 172 ++++++++++++++++++
Documentation/security/index.rst | 1 +
3 files changed, 179 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 Documentation/security/fgkaslr.rst

diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
index fc34332c8d9a..b79423c5a41a 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
@@ -2224,6 +2224,12 @@
kernel and module base offset ASLR (Address Space
Layout Randomization).

+ nofgkaslr [KNL]
+ When CONFIG_FG_KASLR is set, this parameter
+ disables kernel function granular ASLR
+ (Address Space Layout Randomization).
+ See Documentation/security/fgkaslr.rst.
+
kasan_multi_shot
[KNL] Enforce KASAN (Kernel Address Sanitizer) to print
report on every invalid memory access. Without this
diff --git a/Documentation/security/fgkaslr.rst b/Documentation/security/fgkaslr.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..50dc24f675b5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/security/fgkaslr.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,172 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+=====================================================================
+Function Granular Kernel Address Space Layout Randomization (fgkaslr)
+=====================================================================
+
+:Date: 6 April 2020
+:Author: Kristen Accardi
+
+Kernel Address Space Layout Randomization (KASLR) was merged into the kernel
+with the objective of increasing the difficulty of code reuse attacks. Code
+reuse attacks reused existing code snippets to get around existing memory
+protections. They exploit software bugs which expose addresses of useful code
+snippets to control the flow of execution for their own nefarious purposes.
+KASLR as it was originally implemented moves the entire kernel code text as a
+unit at boot time in order to make addresses less predictable. The order of the
+code within the segment is unchanged - only the base address is shifted. There
+are a few shortcomings to this algorithm.
+
+1. Low Entropy - there are only so many locations the kernel can fit in. This
+ means an attacker could guess without too much trouble.
+2. Knowledge of a single address can reveal the offset of the base address,
+ exposing all other locations for a published/known kernel image.
+3. Info leaks abound.
+
+Finer grained ASLR has been proposed as a way to make ASLR more resistant
+to info leaks. It is not a new concept at all, and there are many variations
+possible. Function reordering is an implementation of finer grained ASLR
+which randomizes the layout of an address space on a function level
+granularity. The term "fgkaslr" is used in this document to refer to the
+technique of function reordering when used with KASLR, as well as finer grained
+KASLR in general.
+
+The objective of this patch set is to improve a technology that is already
+merged into the kernel (KASLR). This code will not prevent all code reuse
+attacks, and should be considered as one of several tools that can be used.
+
+Implementation Details
+======================
+
+The over-arching objective of the fgkaslr implementation is incremental
+improvement over the existing KASLR algorithm. It is designed to work with
+the existing solution, and there are two main area where code changes occur:
+Build time, and Load time.
+
+Build time
+----------
+
+GCC has had an option to place functions into individual .text sections
+for many years now (-ffunction-sections). This option is used to implement
+function reordering at load time. The final compiled vmlinux retains all the
+section headers, which can be used to help find the address ranges of each
+function. Using this information and an expanded table of relocation addresses,
+individual text sections can be shuffled immediately after decompression.
+Some data tables inside the kernel that have assumptions about order
+require sorting after the update. In order to modify these tables,
+a few key symbols from the objcopy symbol stripping process are preserved
+for use after shuffling the text segments. Any special input sections which are
+defined by the kernel build process and collected into the .text output
+segment are left unmodified and will still be present inside the .text segment,
+unrandomized other than normal base address randomization.
+
+Load time
+---------
+
+The boot kernel was modified to parse the vmlinux elf file after
+decompression to check for symbols for modifying data tables, and to
+look for any .text.* sections to randomize. The sections are then shuffled,
+and tables are updated or resorted. The existing code which updated relocation
+addresses was modified to account for not just a fixed delta from the load
+address, but the offset that the function section was moved to. This requires
+inspection of each address to see if it was impacted by a randomization.
+
+In order to hide the new layout, symbols reported through /proc/kallsyms will
+be displayed in a random order.
+
+Performance Impact
+==================
+
+There are two areas where function reordering can impact performance: boot
+time latency, and run time performance.
+
+Boot time latency
+-----------------
+
+This implementation of finer grained KASLR impacts the boot time of the kernel
+in several places. It requires additional parsing of the kernel ELF file to
+obtain the section headers of the sections to be randomized. It calls the
+random number generator for each section to be randomized to determine that
+section's new memory location. It copies the decompressed kernel into a new
+area of memory to avoid corruption when laying out the newly randomized
+sections. It increases the number of relocations the kernel has to perform at
+boot time vs. standard KASLR, and it also requires a lookup on each address
+that needs to be relocated to see if it was in a randomized section and needs
+to be adjusted by a new offset. Finally, it re-sorts a few data tables that
+are required to be sorted by address.
+
+Booting a test VM on a modern, well appointed system showed an increase in
+latency of approximately 1 second.
+
+Run time
+--------
+
+The performance impact at run-time of function reordering varies by workload.
+Randomly reordering the functions will cause an increase in cache misses
+for some workloads. Some workloads perform significantly worse under FGKASLR,
+while others stay the same or even improve. In general, it will depend on the
+code flow whether or not finer grained KASLR will impact a workload, and how
+the underlying code was designed. Because the layout changes per boot, each
+time a system is rebooted the performance of a workload may change.
+
+Image Size
+==========
+
+fgkaslr increases the size of the kernel binary due to the extra section
+headers that are included, as well as the extra relocations that need to
+be added. You can expect fgkaslr to increase the size of the resulting
+vmlinux by about 3%, and the compressed image (bzImage) by 15%.
+
+Memory Usage
+============
+
+fgkaslr increases the amount of heap that is required at boot time,
+although this extra memory is released when the kernel has finished
+decompression. As a result, it may not be appropriate to use this feature
+on systems without much memory.
+
+Building
+========
+
+To enable fine grained KASLR, you need to have the following config options
+set (including all the ones you would use to build normal KASLR)
+
+``CONFIG_FG_KASLR=y``
+
+fgkaslr for the kernel is only supported for the X86_64 architecture.
+
+Modules
+=======
+
+Modules are randomized similarly to the rest of the kernel by shuffling
+the sections at load time prior to moving them into memory. The module must
+also have been build with the -ffunction-sections compiler option.
+
+Although fgkaslr for the kernel is only supported for the X86_64 architecture,
+it is possible to use fgkaslr with modules on other architectures. To enable
+this feature, select the following config option:
+
+``CONFIG_MODULE_FG_KASLR``
+
+This option is selected automatically for X86_64 when CONFIG_FG_KASLR is set.
+
+Disabling
+=========
+
+Disabling normal kaslr using the nokaslr command line option also disables
+fgkaslr. In addition, it is possible to disable fgkaslr separately by booting
+with "nofgkaslr" on the commandline.
+
+Further Information
+===================
+
+There are a lot of academic papers which explore finer grained ASLR.
+This paper in particular contributed significantly to the implementation design.
+
+Selfrando: Securing the Tor Browser against De-anonymization Exploits,
+M. Conti, S. Crane, T. Frassetto, et al.
+
+For more information on how function layout impacts performance, see:
+
+Optimizing Function Placement for Large-Scale Data-Center Applications,
+G. Ottoni, B. Maher
diff --git a/Documentation/security/index.rst b/Documentation/security/index.rst
index 16335de04e8c..41444124090f 100644
--- a/Documentation/security/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/security/index.rst
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ Security Documentation

credentials
IMA-templates
+ fgkaslr
keys/index
lsm
lsm-development
--
2.33.1