Re: [PATCH 0/2] Don’t leave executable TLB entries to freed pages

[Masami Hiramatsu]

On Thu, 29 Nov 2018 18:49:26 +0000
"Edgecombe, Rick P" <rick.p.edgecombe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Thu, 2018-11-29 at 23:06 +0900, Masami Hiramatsu wrote:
> > On Tue, 27 Nov 2018 16:07:52 -0800
> > Rick Edgecombe <rick.p.edgecombe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > 
> > > Sometimes when memory is freed via the module subsystem, an executable
> > > permissioned TLB entry can remain to a freed page. If the page is re-used to
> > > back an address that will receive data from userspace, it can result in user
> > > data being mapped as executable in the kernel. The root of this behavior is
> > > vfree lazily flushing the TLB, but not lazily freeing the underlying pages. 
> > 
> > Good catch!
> > 
> > > 
> > > There are sort of three categories of this which show up across modules,
> > > bpf,
> > > kprobes and ftrace:
> > 
> > For x86-64 kprobe, it sets the page NX and after that RW, and then release
> > via module_memfree. So I'm not sure it really happens on kprobes. (Of course
> > the default memory allocator is simpler so it may happen on other archs) But
> > interesting fixes.
> Yes, I think you are right, it should not leave an executable TLB entry in this
> case. Ftrace actually does this on x86 as well.
> 
> Is there some other reason for calling set_memory_nx that should apply elsewhere
> for module users? Or could it be removed in the case of this patch to centralize
> the behavior?

According to the commit c93f5cf571e7 ("kprobes/x86: Fix to set RWX bits correctly
before releasing trampoline"), if we release readonly page by module_memfree(),
it causes kernel crash. And at this moment, on x86-64 set the trampoline page
readonly becuase it is an exacutable page. Setting NX bit is for security reason
that should be set before making it writable.
So I think if you centralize setting NX bit, it should be done before setting
writable bit.

Thank you,


-- 
Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@xxxxxxxxxx>