Re: [RFC PATCH v1 0/1] seal system mappings

[Jeff Xu <jeffxu@chromium.org>]

Hi Liam,

On Mon, Oct 7, 2024 at 7:19 PM Liam R. Howlett <Liam.Howlett@oracle.com> wrote:
>
> * jeffxu@chromium.org <jeffxu@chromium.org> [241004 12:32]:
> > From: Jeff Xu <jeffxu@google.com>
> >
> > Seal vdso, vvar, sigpage, uprobes and vsyscall.
> >
> > Those mappings are readonly or executable only, sealing can protect
> > them from ever changing during the life time of the process.
> >
> > System mappings such as vdso, vvar, and sigpage (for arm) are
> > generated by the kernel during program initialization. These mappings
> > are designated as non-writable, and sealing them will prevent them
> > from ever becoming writeable.
>
> But it also means they cannot be unmapped, right?
>
> I'm not saying it's a thing people should, but recent conversations
> with the ppc people seem to indicate that people do 'things' to the vdso
> such as removing it.
>
> Won't this change mean they cannot do that, at least if mseal is enabled
> on ppc64?  In which case we would have a different special mapping for
> powerpc, or any other platform that wants to be able to unmap the vdso
> (or vvar or whatever else?)
>
> In fact, I came across people removing the vdso to catch callers to
> those functions which they didn't want to allow.  In this case enabling
> the security of mseal would not allow them to stop applications from
> vdso calls.  Again, I'm not saying this is a good (or bad) idea but it
> happening.
>
> >
> > Unlike the aforementioned mappings, the uprobe mapping is not
> > established during program startup. However, its lifetime is the same
> > as the process's lifetime [1], thus sealable.
> >
> > The vdso, vvar, sigpage, and uprobe mappings all invoke the
> > _install_special_mapping() function. As no other mappings utilize this
> > function, it is logical to incorporate sealing logic within
> > _install_special_mapping(). This approach avoids the necessity of
> > modifying code across various architecture-specific implementations.
> >
> > The vsyscall mapping, which has its own initialization function, is
> > sealed in the XONLY case, it seems to be the most common and secure
> > case of using vsyscall.
> >
> > It is important to note that the CHECKPOINT_RESTORE feature (CRIU) may
> > alter the mapping of vdso, vvar, and sigpage during restore
> > operations. Consequently, this feature cannot be universally enabled
> > across all systems. To address this, a kernel configuration option has
> > been introduced to enable or disable this functionality. I tested
> > CONFIG_SEAL_SYSTEM_MAPPINGS_ALWAYS with ChromeOS, which doesn’t use
> > CHECKPOINT_RESTORE, to verify the sealing works.
>
> I am hesitant to say that CRIU is the only user of moving the vdso, as
> the ppc people wanted the ability for the fallback methods to still
> function when the vdso was unmapped.
>
> I am not sure we can change the user expected behaviour based on a
> configuration option; users may be able to mmap/munmap but may not be
> able to boot their own kernel, but maybe it's okay?
>
The text doesn't say CRIU is the **only** feature that is not
compatible with this.

The default config is "CONFIG_SEAL_SYSTEM_MAPPINGS_NEVER", and
distribution needs to opt-in for this feature, such as ChromeOS or
Android or other safe-by-default systems that doesn't allow to unmap
or remap vdso in production build.

Thanks
-Jeff


> >
> > [1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/CABi2SkU9BRUnqf70-nksuMCQ+yyiWjo3fM4XkRkL-NrCZxYAyg@mail.gmail.com/
> >
> > Jeff Xu (1):
> >   exec: seal system mappings
> >
> >  .../admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt         |  9 ++++
> >  arch/x86/entry/vsyscall/vsyscall_64.c         |  9 +++-
> >  fs/exec.c                                     | 53 +++++++++++++++++++
> >  include/linux/fs.h                            |  1 +
> >  mm/mmap.c                                     |  1 +
> >  security/Kconfig                              | 26 +++++++++
> >  6 files changed, 97 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> >
> > --
> > 2.47.0.rc0.187.ge670bccf7e-goog
> >