Re: [PATCH 3/3] sysctl: detect overflows when converting to int

[Kees Cook]

On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 10:31 AM, Heinrich Schuchardt <xypron.glpk@xxxxxx> wrote:
> On 01.04.2015 00:45, Andrew Morton wrote:
>> On Sun, 29 Mar 2015 21:28:29 +0200 Heinrich Schuchardt <xypron.glpk@xxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> When converting unsigned long to int overflows may occur.
>>> These currently are not detected when writing to the sysctl
>>> file system.
>>>
>>> E.g. on a system where int has 32 bits and long has 64 bits
>>>   echo 0x800001234 > /proc/sys/kernel/threads-max
>>> has the same effect as
>>>   echo 0x1234 > /proc/sys/kernel/threads-max
>>>
>>> The patch adds the missing check in do_proc_dointvec_conv.
>>>
>>> With the patch an overflow will result in an error EINVAL when
>>> writing to the the sysctl file system.
>>
>> hm, why fix this?  There's a small risk of breaking
>> accidentally-working userspace, but I expect we can live with that.
>>
>> But how big a problem is this, really?  This behaviour is quite
>> expected, after all.
>>
>
> The typical user of a Linux system has never read the Kernel code and
> possibly has limited programming experience.
> Furthermore in Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt there is no hint that
> only 32-bit integers can be used.
> So why should this typical user expect that on a 64-bit system
> +3000000000 is considered a negative number?
>
> Now that we know this is a bug why shouldn't we fix it?

I think this is worth fixing. It is, from a certain perspective,
"unexpected behavior". At the very least we could tie it to the
sysctl_writes_strict flag? Anything depending on an overflow to get
"correct" results seems extremely unlikely to me.

-Kees

-- 
Kees Cook
Chrome OS Security
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