Re: [PATCH] kmod: make request_module() return an error when autoloading is disabled

[Kees Cook]

On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 03:37:31PM -0700, Eric Biggers wrote:
> From: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@xxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> It's long been possible to disable kernel module autoloading completely
> by setting /proc/sys/kernel/modprobe to the empty string.  This can be

Hunh. I've never seen that before. :) I've always used;

echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/modules_disabled

Regardless,

Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

-Kees

> preferable to setting it to a nonexistent file since it avoids the
> overhead of an attempted execve(), avoids potential deadlocks, and
> avoids the call to security_kernel_module_request() and thus on
> SELinux-based systems eliminates the need to write SELinux rules to
> dontaudit module_request.
> 
> However, when module autoloading is disabled in this way,
> request_module() returns 0.  This is broken because callers expect 0 to
> mean that the module was successfully loaded.
> 
> Apparently this was never noticed because this method of disabling
> module autoloading isn't used much, and also most callers don't use the
> return value of request_module() since it's always necessary to check
> whether the module registered its functionality or not anyway.  But
> improperly returning 0 can indeed confuse a few callers, for example
> get_fs_type() in fs/filesystems.c where it causes a WARNING to be hit:
> 
> 	if (!fs && (request_module("fs-%.*s", len, name) == 0)) {
> 		fs = __get_fs_type(name, len);
> 		WARN_ONCE(!fs, "request_module fs-%.*s succeeded, but still no fs?\n", len, name);
> 	}
> 
> This is easily reproduced with:
> 
> 	echo > /proc/sys/kernel/modprobe
> 	mount -t NONEXISTENT none /
> 
> It causes:
> 
> 	request_module fs-NONEXISTENT succeeded, but still no fs?
> 	WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 1106 at fs/filesystems.c:275 get_fs_type+0xd6/0xf0
> 	[...]
> 
> Arguably this warning is broken and should be removed, since the module
> could have been unloaded already.  However, request_module() should also
> correctly return an error when it fails.  So let's make it return
> -ENOENT, which matches the error when the modprobe binary doesn't exist.
> 
> Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Jeff Vander Stoep <jeffv@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Jessica Yu <jeyu@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  kernel/kmod.c | 4 ++--
>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/kernel/kmod.c b/kernel/kmod.c
> index bc6addd9152b..a2de58de6ab6 100644
> --- a/kernel/kmod.c
> +++ b/kernel/kmod.c
> @@ -120,7 +120,7 @@ static int call_modprobe(char *module_name, int wait)
>   * invoke it.
>   *
>   * If module auto-loading support is disabled then this function
> - * becomes a no-operation.
> + * simply returns -ENOENT.
>   */
>  int __request_module(bool wait, const char *fmt, ...)
>  {
> @@ -137,7 +137,7 @@ int __request_module(bool wait, const char *fmt, ...)
>  	WARN_ON_ONCE(wait && current_is_async());
>  
>  	if (!modprobe_path[0])
> -		return 0;
> +		return -ENOENT;
>  
>  	va_start(args, fmt);
>  	ret = vsnprintf(module_name, MODULE_NAME_LEN, fmt, args);
> -- 
> 2.25.1.481.gfbce0eb801-goog
> 

-- 
Kees Cook