RE: [PATCH v5 02/12] array_idx: sanitize speculative array de-references

[Van De Ven, Arjan]

> > short term there was some extremely rudimentary static analysis done. clearly
> > that has extreme limitations both in insane rate of false positives, and missing
> > cases.
> 
> What was the output roughly, how many suspect places that need
> array_idx_nospec()
> handling: a few, a few dozen, a few hundred or a few thousand?
> 
> I'm guessing 'static tool emitted hundreds of sites with many false positives
> included, but the real sites are probably a few dozen' - but that's really just a
> very, very wild guess.

your guess is pretty accurate; we ended up with some 15 or so places (the first patch kit Dan mailed out)


> 
> - If it's more than a few dozen then intuitively I'd also be very much in favor of
>   compiler help: for example trickle down __user annotations that Sparse uses
> some
>   more and let the compiler sanitize indices or warn about them - without hurting
>   performance of in-kernel array handling.

we need this kind of help even if it's only for the static analysis tool


 
> Also, IMHO any tooling should very much be open source: this isn't the kind of
> bug
> that can be identified via code review, so there's no fall-back detection method
> like we have for buffer overflows.

we absolutely need some good open source tooling; my personal preference will be a compiler plugin; that way you can use all the fancy logic inside the compilers for analysis, and you can make a "I don't care just fix it" option in addition to flagging for human inspection as the kernel would.