Re: [PATCH] tracing: Add back FORTIFY_SOURCE logic to kernel_stack event structure

From: Kees Cook
Date: Thu Jul 13 2023 - 12:53:38 EST


On Thu, Jul 13, 2023 at 09:26:05AM -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> From: "Steven Rostedt (Google)" <rostedt@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> For backward compatibility, older tooling expects to see the kernel_stack
> event with a "caller" field that is a fixed size array of 8 addresses. The
> code now supports more than 8 with an added "size" field that states the
> real number of entries. But the "caller" field still just looks like a
> fixed size to user space.
>
> Since the tracing macros that create the user space format files also
> creates the structures that those files represent, the kernel_stack event
> structure had its "caller" field a fixed size of 8, but in reality, when
> it is allocated on the ring buffer, it can hold more if the stack trace is
> bigger that 8 functions. The copying of these entries was simply done with
> a memcpy():
>
> size = nr_entries * sizeof(unsigned long);
> memcpy(entry->caller, fstack->calls, size);
>
> The FORTIFY_SOURCE logic noticed at runtime that when the nr_entries was
> larger than 8, that the memcpy() was writing more than what the structure
> stated it can hold and it complained about it. This is because the
> FORTIFY_SOURCE code is unaware that the amount allocated is actually
> enough to hold the size. It does not expect that a fixed size field will
> hold more than the fixed size.
>
> This was originally solved by hiding the caller assignment with some
> pointer arithmetic.
>
> ptr = ring_buffer_data();
> entry = ptr;
>
> ptr += offsetof(typeof(*entry), caller);
> memcpy(ptr, fstack->calls, size);
>
> But it is considered bad form to hide from kernel hardening. Instead, make
> it work nicely with FORTIFY_SOURCE by adding a new __stack_array() macro
> that is specific for this one special use case. The macro will take 4
> arguments: type, item, len, field (whereas the __array() macro takes just
> the first three). This macro will act just like the __array() macro when
> creating the code to deal with the format file that is exposed to user
> space. But for the kernel, it will turn the caller field into:
>
> type item[] __counted_by(field);
>
> or for this instance:
>
> unsigned long caller[] __counted_by(size);
>
> Now the kernel code can expose the assignment of the caller to the
> FORTIFY_SOURCE and everyone is happy!
>
> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-trace-kernel/20230712105235.5fc441aa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/
>
> Suggested-by: Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (Google) <rostedt@xxxxxxxxxxx>

Yay! This looks good. :)

Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

--
Kees Cook