Re: [PATCH] ipc,sem block sem_lock on sma->lock during sma initialization

[Manfred Spraul]

On 11/21/2014 09:29 PM, Rik van Riel wrote:
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> On 11/21/2014 03:09 PM, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > On Fri, 21 Nov 2014 14:52:26 -0500 Rik van Riel <riel@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > When manipulating just one semaphore with semop, sem_lock only
> > > takes that single semaphore's lock. This creates a problem during
> > > initialization of the semaphore array, when the data structures
> > > used by sem_lock have not been set up yet. The sma->lock is
> > > already held by newary, and we just have to make sure everything
> > > else waits on that lock during initialization.
> > >
> > > Luckily it is easy to make sem_lock wait on the sma->lock, by
> > > pretending there is a complex operation in progress while the sma
> > > is being initialized.
> > >
> > > The newary function already zeroes sma->complex_count before
> > > unlocking the sma->lock.
> > What are the runtime effects of the bug?
> NULL pointer dereference in spin_lock from sem_lock,
> if it is called before sma->sem_base has been pointed
> somewhere valid.
No, this can't happen:
- sma is initialized to 0 with memset()
- sma->sem_nsems is set last.
- semtimedop() contains a "max >= sma->sem_nsems".

with sma->sem_nsems==0, this will always fail and therefore sem_lock() 
can't be reached.

The only misbehavior (apart from returning -EFBIG) is that 
find_alloc_undo() could allocate a wrong-sized undo structure.
Would cause random memory corruptions - but not NULL pointer dereference.

Which which kernel version have you seen the NULL pointer dereference?

--
    Manfred
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