linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v2] Implement /proc/pid/kill

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Date:   Wed, 31 Oct 2018 08:05:48 -0700
From:   Joel Fernandes <joel@...lfernandes.org>
To:     Daniel Colascione <dancol@...gle.com>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, timmurray@...gle.com,
        joelaf@...gle.com, surenb@...gle.com, cyphar@...har.com,
        christian.brauner@...onical.com, ebiederm@...ssion.com,
        keescook@...omium.org, oleg@...hat.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] Implement /proc/pid/kill

On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 02:37:44PM +0000, Daniel Colascione wrote:
> Add a simple proc-based kill interface. To use /proc/pid/kill, just
> write the signal number in base-10 ASCII to the kill file of the
> process to be killed: for example, 'echo 9 > /proc/$$/kill'.
> 
> Semantically, /proc/pid/kill works like kill(2), except that the
> process ID comes from the proc filesystem context instead of from an
> explicit system call parameter. This way, it's possible to avoid races
> between inspecting some aspect of a process and that process's PID
> being reused for some other process.
> 
> Note that only the real user ID that opened a /proc/pid/kill file can
> write to it; other users get EPERM.  This check prevents confused
> deputy attacks via, e.g., standard output of setuid programs.
> 
> With /proc/pid/kill, it's possible to write a proper race-free and
> safe pkill(1). An approximation follows. A real program might use
> openat(2), having opened a process's /proc/pid directory explicitly,
> with the directory file descriptor serving as a sort of "process
> handle".
> 
>     #!/bin/bash
>     set -euo pipefail
>     pat=$1
>     for proc_status in /proc/*/status; do (
>         cd $(dirname $proc_status)
>         readarray proc_argv -d'' < cmdline
>         if ((${#proc_argv[@]} > 0)) &&
>                [[ ${proc_argv[0]} = *$pat* ]];
>         then
>             echo 15 > kill
>         fi
>     ) || true; done
> 
> Signed-off-by: Daniel Colascione <dancol@...gle.com>
> ---
> 
> Added a real-user-ID check to prevent confused deputy attacks.
> 
>  fs/proc/base.c | 51 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 51 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/fs/proc/base.c b/fs/proc/base.c
> index 7e9f07bf260d..74e494f24b28 100644
> --- a/fs/proc/base.c
> +++ b/fs/proc/base.c
> @@ -205,6 +205,56 @@ static int proc_root_link(struct dentry *dentry, struct path *path)
>  	return result;
>  }
>  
> +static ssize_t proc_pid_kill_write(struct file *file,
> +				   const char __user *buf,
> +				   size_t count, loff_t *ppos)
> +{
> +	ssize_t res;
> +	int sig;
> +	char buffer[4];
> +
> +	/* This check prevents a confused deputy attack in which an
> +	 * unprivileged process opens /proc/victim/kill and convinces
> +	 * a privileged process to write to that kill FD, effectively
> +	 * performing a kill with the privileges of the unwitting
> +	 * privileged process.  Here, we just fail the kill operation
> +	 * if someone calls write(2) with a real user ID that differs
> +	 * from the one used to open the kill FD.
> +	 */
> +	res = -EPERM;
> +	if (file->f_cred->user != current_user())
> +		goto out;

nit: You could get rid of the out label and just do direct returns. Will save
a few lines and is more readable.

> +
> +	res = -EINVAL;
> +	if (*ppos != 0)
> +		goto out;
> +
> +	res = -EINVAL;
> +	if (count > sizeof(buffer) - 1)
> +		goto out;
> +
> +	res = -EFAULT;
> +	if (copy_from_user(buffer, buf, count))
> +		goto out;
> +
> +	buffer[count] = '\0';

I think you can just zero-initialize buffer with "= {};" and get rid of this line.

> +	res = kstrtoint(strstrip(buffer), 10, &sig);
> +	if (res)
> +		goto out;


> +
> +	res = kill_pid(proc_pid(file_inode(file)), sig, 0);
> +	if (res)
> +		goto out;

if (res)
	return res;

Other than the security issues which I still think you're discussing, since
we need this, I suggest to maintainers we take this in as an intermediate
solution since we don't have anything close to it and this is a real issue,
and the fix proposed is simple.  So FWIW feel free to add my reviewed-by
(with the above nits and security issues taken care off) on any future
respins:

Reviewed-by: Joel Fernandes (Google) <joel@...lfernandes.org>

thanks,

- Joel