Re: [PATCH] Avoid buffer overflows in get_user_pages()

From: Oliver Pinter
Date: Thu Feb 14 2008 - 11:46:07 EST


for stable (.22 .23 .24) ?

git id in mainline: 900cf086fd2fbad07f72f4575449e0d0958f860f

--

tested in: http://repo.or.cz/w/linux-2.6.22.y-op.git testing

On 2/12/08, Jonathan Corbet <corbet@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> Avoid buffer overflows in get_user_pages()
>
> So I spent a while pounding my head against my monitor trying to figure
> out the vmsplice() vulnerability - how could a failure to check for
> *read* access turn into a root exploit? It turns out that it's a buffer
> overflow problem which is made easy by the way get_user_pages() is
> coded.
>
> In particular, "len" is a signed int, and it is only checked at the
> *end* of a do {} while() loop. So, if it is passed in as zero, the loop
> will execute once and decrement len to -1. At that point, the loop will
> proceed until the next invalid address is found; in the process, it will
> likely overflow the pages array passed in to get_user_pages().
>
> I think that, if get_user_pages() has been asked to grab zero pages,
> that's what it should do. Thus this patch; it is, among other things,
> enough to block the (already fixed) root exploit and any others which
> might be lurking in similar code. I also think that the number of pages
> should be unsigned, but changing the prototype of this function probably
> requires some more careful review.
>
> Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@xxxxxxx>
>
> diff --git a/mm/memory.c b/mm/memory.c
> index e5628a5..7f50fd8 100644
> --- a/mm/memory.c
> +++ b/mm/memory.c
> @@ -989,6 +989,8 @@ int get_user_pages(struct task_struct *tsk, struct
> mm_struct *mm,
> int i;
> unsigned int vm_flags;
>
> + if (len <= 0)
> + return 0;
> /*
> * Require read or write permissions.
> * If 'force' is set, we only require the "MAY" flags.
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--
Thanks,
Oliver
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