Re: [kernel-hardening] [PATCH v4 next 0/3] modules: automatic module loading restrictions

[Andy Lutomirski]

On Tue, May 23, 2017 at 11:36 AM, Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Tue, May 23, 2017 at 12:48 AM, Solar Designer <solar@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> For modules_autoload_mode=2, we already seem to have the equivalent of
>> modprobe=/bin/true (or does it differ subtly, maybe in return values?),
>> which I already use at startup on a GPU box like this (preloading
>> modules so that the OpenCL backends wouldn't need the autoloading):
>>
>> nvidia-smi
>> nvidia-modprobe -u -c=0
>> #modprobe nvidia_uvm
>> #modprobe fglrx
>>
>> sysctl -w kernel.modprobe=/bin/true
>> sysctl -w kernel.hotplug=/bin/true
>>
>> but it's good to also have this supported more explicitly and more
>> consistently through modules_autoload_mode=2 while we're at it.  So I
>> support having this mode as well.  I just question the need to have it
>> non-resettable.
>
> I agree it's useful to have the explicit =2 state just to avoid
> confusion when more systems start implementing
> CONFIG_STATIC_USERMODEHELPER and kernel.modprobe becomes read-only
> (though the userspace implementation may allow for some way to disable
> it, etc). I just like avoiding the upcall to modprobe at all.

I fully support =2 to mean "no automatic loading at all".  I dislike
making it non-resettable.  If you can write to sysctls, then, most
likely you can either call init_module() directly or the system has
module loading disabled entirely.