Re: [RFC] perf: mmap2 not covering VM_CLONE regions

[Kees Cook]

On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Stephane Eranian <eranian@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 7:14 PM, Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 6:37 AM, Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> On Wed, Oct 02, 2013 at 03:13:16PM +0200, Stephane Eranian wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 3:01 PM, Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> > On Wed, Oct 02, 2013 at 02:59:32PM +0200, Stephane Eranian wrote:
>>>> >> On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 2:46 PM, Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> >> > On Wed, Oct 02, 2013 at 02:39:53PM +0200, Ingo Molnar wrote:
>>>> >> >>  - then there are timing attacks, and someone having access to a PMU
>>>> >> >>    context and who can trigger this SHA1 computation arbitrarily in task
>>>> >> >>    local context can run very accurate and low noise timing attacks...
>>>> >> >>
>>>> >> >>    I don't think the kernel's sha_transform() is hardened against timing
>>>> >> >>    attacks, it's performance optimized so it has variable execution time
>>>> >> >>    highly dependent on plaintext input - which leaks information about the
>>>> >> >>    plaintext.
>>>> >> >
>>>> >> > Typical user doesn't have enough priv to profile kernel space; once you
>>>> >> > do you also have enough priv to see kernel addresses outright (ie.
>>>> >> > kallsyms etc..).
>>>> >> >
>>>> >> I was going to say just that. But that's not the default, paranoid level
>>>> >> is at 1 by default and not 2. So I supposedly can still do:
>>>> >>
>>>> >> $ perf record -e cycles ......
>>>> >>
>>>> >> In per-thread mode and collect kernel level addresses.
>>>> >
>>>> > Oh right you are.. so yes that's a very viable avenue.
>>>>
>>>> You mean simply encoding the vma->vm_mm as the ino number, for instance.
>>>
>>> Nah.. I think Kees would very much shoot us on the spot for doing that.
>>> But with the paranoid level defaulting to 1 the PMU attack on the kernel
>>> SHA implenentation is feasible.
>>
>> We already have other kernel address leaks (e.g. heap addresses via
>> INET_DIAG), and I'd like to avoid adding more. It'd be nice if there
>> was a common way to uniquely mask these values that are really just
>> "handles". We could use it both here and in the network code.
>>
>> Would it be possible to just have a "regular" incrementing handle,
>> like fd, or are we talking about doing that map for all VMAs, which
>> would make that mapping unfeasible due to storage needs?
>>
> All we need is a way to report that two vmas point to the same
> vma->vm_mm, i..e, same physical data. If I understand what
> you are suggesting, you'd add some sort of generation number
> to the vm_mm. Each new vm_mm gets a new number. That
> would work, I think. No kernel addresses reported directly nor
> hashed.

Right. Is that workable? It sounds like this handle is only needed at
inspection time, though. Is this uniqueness test limited to a single
process, or is this uniqueness test across processes?

-Kees

-- 
Kees Cook
Chrome OS Security
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