linux-hardening - Re: [PATCH] proc: Disable /proc/$pid/wchan

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Date:   Thu, 23 Sep 2021 18:42:04 -0700
From:   Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>
To:     Vito Caputo <vcaputo@...garu.com>
Cc:     Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>, Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@...hat.com>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, Jens Axboe <axboe@...nel.dk>,
        Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@....com>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Stefan Metzmacher <metze@...ba.org>,
        Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
        Lai Jiangshan <laijs@...ux.alibaba.com>,
        Christian Brauner <christian.brauner@...ntu.com>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        "Kenta.Tada@...y.com" <Kenta.Tada@...y.com>,
        Daniel Bristot de Oliveira <bristot@...hat.com>,
        Michael Weiß 
        <michael.weiss@...ec.fraunhofer.de>,
        Anand K Mistry <amistry@...gle.com>,
        Alexey Gladkov <legion@...nel.org>,
        Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.com>, Helge Deller <deller@....de>,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>,
        Andrea Righi <andrea.righi@...onical.com>,
        Ohhoon Kwon <ohoono.kwon@...sung.com>,
        Kalesh Singh <kaleshsingh@...gle.com>,
        YiFei Zhu <yifeifz2@...inois.edu>,
        "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, x86@...nel.org,
        linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org, linux-hardening@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] proc: Disable /proc/$pid/wchan

On Thu, Sep 23, 2021 at 06:34:08PM -0700, Vito Caputo wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 23, 2021 at 06:16:16PM -0700, Kees Cook wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 23, 2021 at 05:22:30PM -0700, Vito Caputo wrote:
> > > Instead of unwinding stacks maybe the kernel should be sticking an
> > > entrypoint address in the current task struct for get_wchan() to
> > > access, whenever userspace enters the kernel?
> > 
> > wchan is supposed to show where the kernel is at the instant the
> > get_wchan() happens. (i.e. recording it at syscall entry would just
> > always show syscall entry.)
> > 
> 
> And you have the syscall # onhand when performing the syscall entry,
> no?
> 
> The point is, if the alternative is to always get 0 from
> /proc/PID/wchan when a process is sitting in ioctl(), I'd be perfectly
> happy to get back sys_ioctl.  I'm under the impression there's quite a
> bit of vendor-specific flexibility here in terms of how precise WCHAN
> is.

Oh, yeah, if you're happy with syscall-level granularity, that'd be
totally fine by me too.

> If it's possible to preserve the old WCHAN precision I'm all for it.
> But if we've become so paranoid about leaking anything about the
> kernel to userspace that this is untenable, even if it just spits out
> the syscall being performed that has value.

I'd like to find a middle ground -- wchan has always seemed like a info
leak, even with only symbols. And it doesn't help that walking the stack
from outside the current task is difficult. :)

-Kees

-- 
Kees Cook