Re: [PATCH net-next 3/3] netlink: add validation of NLA_F_NESTED flag

From: Johannes Berg
Date: Thu May 02 2019 - 08:55:22 EST


On Thu, 2019-05-02 at 12:48 +0000, Michal Kubecek wrote:
> Add new validation flag NL_VALIDATE_NESTED which adds three consistency
> checks of NLA_F_NESTED_FLAG:
>
> - the flag is set on attributes with NLA_NESTED{,_ARRAY} policy
> - the flag is not set on attributes with other policies except NLA_UNSPEC
> - the flag is set on attribute passed to nla_parse_nested()

Looks good to me!

> @@ -415,7 +418,8 @@ enum netlink_validation {
> #define NL_VALIDATE_STRICT (NL_VALIDATE_TRAILING |\
> NL_VALIDATE_MAXTYPE |\
> NL_VALIDATE_UNSPEC |\
> - NL_VALIDATE_STRICT_ATTRS)
> + NL_VALIDATE_STRICT_ATTRS |\
> + NL_VALIDATE_NESTED)

This is fine _right now_, but in general we cannot keep adding here
after the next release :-)

> int netlink_rcv_skb(struct sk_buff *skb,
> int (*cb)(struct sk_buff *, struct nlmsghdr *,
> @@ -1132,6 +1136,10 @@ static inline int nla_parse_nested(struct nlattr *tb[], int maxtype,
> const struct nla_policy *policy,
> struct netlink_ext_ack *extack)
> {
> + if (!(nla->nla_type & NLA_F_NESTED)) {
> + NL_SET_ERR_MSG_ATTR(extack, nla, "nested attribute expected");

Maybe reword that to say "NLA_F_NESTED is missing" or so? The "nested
attribute expected" could result in a lot of headscratching (without
looking at the code) because it looks nested if you do nla_nest_start()
etc.

> + return -EINVAL;
> + }
> return __nla_parse(tb, maxtype, nla_data(nla), nla_len(nla), policy,
> NL_VALIDATE_STRICT, extack);

I'd probably put a blank line there but ymmv.

> }
> diff --git a/lib/nlattr.c b/lib/nlattr.c
> index adc919b32bf9..92da65cb6637 100644
> --- a/lib/nlattr.c
> +++ b/lib/nlattr.c
> @@ -184,6 +184,21 @@ static int validate_nla(const struct nlattr *nla, int maxtype,
> }
> }
>
> + if (validate & NL_VALIDATE_NESTED) {
> + if ((pt->type == NLA_NESTED || pt->type == NLA_NESTED_ARRAY) &&
> + !(nla->nla_type & NLA_F_NESTED)) {
> + NL_SET_ERR_MSG_ATTR(extack, nla,
> + "nested attribute expected");
> + return -EINVAL;
> + }
> + if (pt->type != NLA_NESTED && pt->type != NLA_NESTED_ARRAY &&
> + pt->type != NLA_UNSPEC && (nla->nla_type & NLA_F_NESTED)) {
> + NL_SET_ERR_MSG_ATTR(extack, nla,
> + "nested attribute not expected");
> + return -EINVAL;

Same comment here wrt. the messages, I think they should more explicitly
refer to the flag.

johannes

(PS: if you CC me on this address I generally can respond quicker)