Re: [PATCH v2] fs/exec: require argv[0] presence in do_execveat_common()

From: Eric W. Biederman
Date: Wed Jan 26 2022 - 11:58:01 EST


Matthew Wilcox <willy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 11:44:47AM +0000, Ariadne Conill wrote:
>> Interestingly, Michael Kerrisk opened an issue about this in 2008[1],
>> but there was no consensus to support fixing this issue then.
>> Hopefully now that CVE-2021-4034 shows practical exploitative use
>> of this bug in a shellcode, we can reconsider.
>>
>> [0]: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/exec.html
>> [1]: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8408
>
> Having now read 8408 ... if ABI change is a concern (and I really doubt
> it is), we could treat calling execve() with a NULL argv as if the
> caller had passed an array of length 1 with the first element set to
> NULL. Just like we reopen fds 0,1,2 for suid execs if they were
> closed.

Where do we reopen fds 0,1,2 for suid execs? I feel silly but I looked
through the code fs/exec.c quickly and I could not see it.


I am attracted to the notion of converting an empty argv array passed
to the kernel into something we can safely pass to userspace.

I think it would need to be having the first entry point to "" instead
of the first entry being NULL. That would maintain the invariant that you
can always dereference a pointer in the argv array.

Eric