Message-ID: <20080930153820.GA28616@us.ibm.com>
Date:	Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:38:20 -0500
From:	"Serge E. Hallyn" <serue@...ibm.com>
To:	Eric Paris <eparis@...hat.com>
Cc:	James Morris <jmorris@...ei.org>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	sds@...ho.nsa.gov, morgan@...nel.org, selinux@...ho.nsa.gov
Subject: Re: [PATCH] capability: WARN when invalid capability is requested
	rather than BUG/panic

Quoting Eric Paris (eparis@...hat.com):
> On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 00:23 +1000, James Morris wrote:
> > On Tue, 30 Sep 2008, Eric Paris wrote:
> > 
> > > This patch adds a WARN_ONCE() to cap_capable() so we will stop
> > > dereferencing random spots of memory and will cleanly tell the obviously
> > > broken driver that it doesn't have that ridiculous permissions.  No idea
> > > if the driver is going to handle EPERM but anything that calls capable
> > > and doesn't expect a denial has got to be the worst piece of code ever
> > > written.....  I could return EINVAL, but I think its clear that noone
> > > has capabilities over 64 so clearly they don't have that permission.
> > > 
> > > This 'could' be considered a regression since 2.6.24.  Neither SELinux
> > > nor the capabilities system had a problem with ginormous request values
> > > until we got 64 bit support, although this is OBVIOUSLY a bug with the
> > > out of tree closed source driver....
> > 
> > An issue here is whether we should be adding workarounds in the mainline 
> > kernel for buggy closed drivers.  Papering over problems rather than 
> > getting them fixed does not seem like a winning approach.  Especially 
> > problems which are unexpectedly messing with kernel security APIs.
> 
> I don't know, looking at the feelings on "Can userspace bugs be kernel
> regressions" leads me to believe that when we break something that once
> worked we are supposed to fix it.
> 
> http://lwn.net/Articles/292143/
> 
> I don't think the proprietary closed source nature of the driver makes
> it any less our problem

The kernel-space nature of the driver is the distinction here.

> to not make changes which cause the kernel to
> esplode.
> 
> > Also, won't this encourage vendors of such drivers to continue with this 
> > behavior, while discouraging those vendors who are doing the right thing?
> 
> Discouraging people who open source their drivers and put them in the
> kernel?  obviously not.  encouraging crap?  well, I hope we fix
> regressions no matter how they are found...
> 
> > Do we know if this even really helps the user?  For all we know, the 
> > driver may simply crash differently with an -EPERM.
> 
> Well, before the 64 bit capabilities change we did:
> 
> (cap_t(c) & CAP_TO_MASK(flag))
> 
> so a huge value for "flag" got masked off.
> 
> After 64 bit capabilities we do:
> 
> ((c).cap[CAP_TO_INDEX(flag)] & CAP_TO_MASK(flag))

Perhaps we should have CAP_TO_INDEX mask itself?

#define CAP_TO_INDEX(x)		(((x) >> 5) & _KERNEL_CAPABILITY_U32S)

Though I still think it's not unreasonable to simply ask for the driver
to be fixed.

> so a huge flag causes an array index out of bounds and either explodes
> here or continues onto SELinux where it BUG().
> 
> So this is regression.  It would have gotten an EPERM, now it gets a
> BUG/panic.
> 
> Yes ATI needs to fix their driver, but we broke it and I don't remember
> the driver not working on 2.6.24 and earlier....
> 
> -Eric
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