Re: [PATCH] mtdchar: prevent unbounded allocation in MEMWRITE ioctl

From: Miquel Raynal
Date: Mon Nov 22 2021 - 04:31:29 EST


Hi Michał,

kernel@xxxxxxxxxx wrote on Mon, 25 Oct 2021 10:21:04 +0200:

> In the mtdchar_write_ioctl() function, memdup_user() is called with its
> 'len' parameter set to verbatim values provided by user space via a
> struct mtd_write_req. Both the 'len' and 'ooblen' fields of that
> structure are 64-bit unsigned integers, which means the MEMWRITE ioctl
> can trigger unbounded kernel memory allocation requests.
>
> Fix by iterating over the buffers provided by user space in a loop,
> processing at most mtd->erasesize bytes in each iteration. Adopt some
> checks from mtd_check_oob_ops() to retain backward user space
> compatibility.
>

Thank you very much for this proposal!

> Suggested-by: Boris Brezillon <boris.brezillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Michał Kępień <kernel@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> Fixing this problem was suggested last month, during a discussion about
> a new MEMREAD ioctl. [1] [2]
>
> My primary objective was to not break user space, i.e. to not change
> externally visible behavior compared to the current code. The main
> problem I faced was that splitting the input data into chunks makes the
> MEMWRITE ioctl a _wrapper_ for mtd_write_oob() rather than a direct
> _interface_ to it and yet from the user space perspective it still needs
> to behave as if nothing changed.
>
> Despite my efforts, the patch does _not_ retain absolute backward
> compatibility and I do not know whether this is acceptable.
> Specifically, multi-eraseblock-sized writes (requiring multiple loop
> iterations to be processed) which succeeded with the original code _may_
> now return errors and/or write different contents to the device than the
> original code, depending on the MTD mode of operation requested and on
> whether the start offset is page-aligned. The documentation for struct
> mtd_oob_ops warns about even multi-page write requests, but...
>
> Example:
>
> MTD device parameters:
>
> - mtd->writesize = 2048
> - mtd->erasesize = 131072
> - 64 bytes of raw OOB space per page
>
> struct mtd_write_req req = {
> .start = 2048,
> .len = 262144,
> .ooblen = 64,
> .usr_data = ...,
> .usr_oob = ...,
> .mode = MTD_OPS_RAW,
> };
>
> (This is a 128-page write with OOB data supplied for just one page.)
>
> Current mtdchar_write_ioctl() returns 0 for this request and writes
> 128 pages of data and 1 page's worth of OOB data (64 bytes) to the
> MTD device.
>
> Patched mtdchar_write_ioctl() may return an error because the
> original request gets split into two chunks (<data_len, oob_len>):
>
> <131072, 64>
> <131072, 0>
>
> and the second chunk with zero OOB data length may make the MTD
> driver unhappy in raw mode (resulting in only the first 64 pages of
> data and 1 page's worth of OOB data getting written to the MTD
> device).

Isn't this a driver issue instead? I mean, writing an eraseblock
without providing any OOB data is completely fine, if the driver
accepts 2 blocks + 1 page OOB but refuses 1 block + 1 page OOB and then
1 block, it's broken, no? Have you experienced such a situation in your
testing?

>
> Is an ioctl like this considered a "degenerate" one and therefore
> acceptable to break or not?

I don't think so :)

>
> At any rate, the revised code feels brittle to me and I would not be
> particularly surprised if I missed more cases in which it produces
> different results than the original code.
>
> I keep on wondering whether the benefits of this change are worth the
> extra code complexity, but fortunately it is not my call to make :)
> Perhaps I am missing something and my proposal can be simplified? Or
> maybe the way I approached this is completely wrong? Any thoughts on
> this are welcome.
>
> As the outcome of the discussion around this patch will have a
> significant influence on the shape of the v2 of the MEMREAD ioctl, I
> decided to submit this one first as a standalone patch.
>
> [1] https://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-mtd/2021-September/088485.html
> [2] https://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-mtd/2021-September/088544.html
>
> drivers/mtd/mtdchar.c | 93 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----------
> 1 file changed, 70 insertions(+), 23 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/drivers/mtd/mtdchar.c b/drivers/mtd/mtdchar.c
> index 155e991d9d75..a3afc390e254 100644
> --- a/drivers/mtd/mtdchar.c
> +++ b/drivers/mtd/mtdchar.c
> @@ -578,9 +578,10 @@ static int mtdchar_write_ioctl(struct mtd_info *mtd,
> {
> struct mtd_info *master = mtd_get_master(mtd);
> struct mtd_write_req req;
> - struct mtd_oob_ops ops = {};
> const void __user *usr_data, *usr_oob;
> - int ret;
> + uint8_t *datbuf = NULL, *oobbuf = NULL;
> + size_t datbuf_len, oobbuf_len;
> + int ret = 0;
>
> if (copy_from_user(&req, argp, sizeof(req)))
> return -EFAULT;
> @@ -590,33 +591,79 @@ static int mtdchar_write_ioctl(struct mtd_info *mtd,
>
> if (!master->_write_oob)
> return -EOPNOTSUPP;
> - ops.mode = req.mode;
> - ops.len = (size_t)req.len;
> - ops.ooblen = (size_t)req.ooblen;
> - ops.ooboffs = 0;
> -
> - if (usr_data) {
> - ops.datbuf = memdup_user(usr_data, ops.len);
> - if (IS_ERR(ops.datbuf))
> - return PTR_ERR(ops.datbuf);
> - } else {
> - ops.datbuf = NULL;
> +
> + if (!usr_data)
> + req.len = 0;
> +
> + if (!usr_oob)
> + req.ooblen = 0;
> +
> + if (req.start + req.len > mtd->size)
> + return -EINVAL;
> +
> + datbuf_len = min_t(size_t, req.len, mtd->erasesize);
> + if (datbuf_len > 0) {
> + datbuf = kmalloc(datbuf_len, GFP_KERNEL);
> + if (!datbuf)
> + return -ENOMEM;
> }
>
> - if (usr_oob) {
> - ops.oobbuf = memdup_user(usr_oob, ops.ooblen);
> - if (IS_ERR(ops.oobbuf)) {
> - kfree(ops.datbuf);
> - return PTR_ERR(ops.oobbuf);
> + oobbuf_len = min_t(size_t, req.ooblen, mtd->erasesize);
> + if (oobbuf_len > 0) {
> + oobbuf = kmalloc(oobbuf_len, GFP_KERNEL);
> + if (!oobbuf) {
> + kfree(datbuf);
> + return -ENOMEM;
> }
> - } else {
> - ops.oobbuf = NULL;
> }
>
> - ret = mtd_write_oob(mtd, (loff_t)req.start, &ops);
> + while (req.len > 0 || (!usr_data && req.ooblen > 0)) {
> + struct mtd_oob_ops ops = {
> + .mode = req.mode,
> + .len = min_t(size_t, req.len, datbuf_len),
> + .ooblen = min_t(size_t, req.ooblen, oobbuf_len),
> + .datbuf = req.len ? datbuf : NULL,
> + .oobbuf = req.ooblen ? oobbuf : NULL,
> + };
>
> - kfree(ops.datbuf);
> - kfree(ops.oobbuf);
> + /*
> + * For writes which are not OOB-only, adjust the amount of OOB
> + * data written according to the number of data pages written.
> + * This is necessary to prevent OOB data from being skipped
> + * over in data+OOB writes requiring multiple mtd_write_oob()
> + * calls to be completed.
> + */
> + if (ops.len > 0 && ops.ooblen > 0) {
> + u32 oob_per_page = mtd_oobavail(mtd, &ops);
> + uint32_t pages_to_write = mtd_div_by_ws(ops.len, mtd);
> +
> + if (mtd_mod_by_ws(req.start + ops.len, mtd))
> + pages_to_write++;
> +
> + ops.ooblen = min_t(size_t, ops.ooblen,
> + pages_to_write * oob_per_page);
> + }
> +
> + if (copy_from_user(datbuf, usr_data, ops.len) ||
> + copy_from_user(oobbuf, usr_oob, ops.ooblen)) {
> + ret = -EFAULT;
> + break;
> + }
> +
> + ret = mtd_write_oob(mtd, req.start, &ops);
> + if (ret)
> + break;
> +
> + req.start += ops.retlen;
> + req.len -= ops.retlen;
> + usr_data += ops.retlen;
> +
> + req.ooblen -= ops.oobretlen;
> + usr_oob += ops.oobretlen;
> + }
> +
> + kfree(datbuf);
> + kfree(oobbuf);
>
> return ret;
> }


Thanks,
Miquèl