Re: [Linux-kernel-mentees] [PATCH net] rds: Prevent kernel-infoleak in rds_notify_queue_get()

[Jack Leadford]

Hello!

Thanks to Jason for getting this conversation back on track.

Yes: in general, {} or a partial initializer /will/ zero padding bits.

However, there is a bug in some versions of GCC where {} will /not/ zero
padding bits; actually, Jason's test program in this mail 
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20200731143604.GF24045@xxxxxxxx/
has the right ingredients to trigger the bug, but the GCC
versions used are outside of the bug window. :)

For more details on these cases and more (including said GCC bug), see 
my paper at:

https://www.nccgroup.com/us/about-us/newsroom-and-events/blog/2019/october/padding-the-struct-how-a-compiler-optimization-can-disclose-stack-memory/

Hopefully this paper can serve as a helpful reference when these cases 
are encountered in the kernel.

Thank you.

Jack Leadford

On 8/3/20 4:06 PM, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 02, 2020 at 03:45:40PM -0700, Joe Perches wrote:
> > On Sun, 2020-08-02 at 19:28 -0300, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> > > On Sun, Aug 02, 2020 at 03:23:58PM -0700, Joe Perches wrote:
> > > > On Sun, 2020-08-02 at 19:10 -0300, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> > > > > On Sat, Aug 01, 2020 at 08:38:33AM +0300, Leon Romanovsky wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > I'm using {} instead of {0} because of this GCC bug.
> > > > > > https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=53119
> > > > >
> > > > > This is why the {} extension exists..
> > > >
> > > > There is no guarantee that the gcc struct initialization {}
> > > > extension also zeros padding.
> > >
> > > We just went over this. Yes there is, C11 requires it.
> >
> > c11 is not c90.  The kernel uses c90.
>
> The kernel already relies on a lot of C11/C99 features and
> behaviors. For instance Linus just bumped the minimum compiler version
> so that C11's _Generic is usable.
>
> Why do you think this particular part of C11 shouldn't be relied on?
>
> Jason