Re: [PATCH v2 1/6] sysctl: avoid spurious permanent empty tables

[Joel Granados]

On Sat, Aug 24, 2024 at 08:05:08PM +0200, Thomas Weißschuh wrote:
> Hi Joel,
> 
> On 2024-08-05 11:39:35+0000, Thomas Weißschuh wrote:
> > The test if a table is a permanently empty one, inspects the address of
> > the registered ctl_table argument.
> > However as sysctl_mount_point is an empty array and does not occupy and
> > space it can end up sharing an address with another object in memory.
> > If that other object itself is a "struct ctl_table" then registering
> > that table will fail as it's incorrectly recognized as permanently empty.
> > 
> > Avoid this issue by adding a dummy element to the array so that is not
> > empty anymore.
> > Explicitly register the table with zero elements as otherwise the dummy
> > element would be recognized as a sentinel element which would lead to a
> > runtime warning from the sysctl core.
> > 
> > While the issue seems not being encountered at this time, this seems
> > mostly to be due to luck.
> > Also a future change, constifying sysctl_mount_point and root_table, can
> > reliably trigger this issue on clang 18.
> > 
> > Given that empty arrays are non-standard in the first place it seems
> > prudent to avoid them if possible.
> > 
> > Fixes: 4a7b29f65094 ("sysctl: move sysctl type to ctl_table_header")
> > Fixes: a35dd3a786f5 ("sysctl: drop now unnecessary out-of-bounds check")
> > Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Signed-off-by: Thomas Weißschuh <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> Any updates on this?
> I fear it can theoretically also happen on v6.11.
> 
This is already in next and will probably make it for v6.11. The "fixed"
tag will make is so it is ported to 6.10.

Best

-- 

Joel Granados