linux-kernel - [patch] mm: mlock: document scary-looking stack expansion mlock chain

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-Id: <1359699013-7160-1-git-send-email-hannes@cmpxchg.org>
Date:	Fri,  1 Feb 2013 01:10:13 -0500
From:	Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>
To:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:	Alexander Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
	Hugh Dickins <hughd@...gle.com>, linux-mm@...ck.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: [patch] mm: mlock: document scary-looking stack expansion mlock chain

The fact that mlock calls get_user_pages, and get_user_pages might
call mlock when expanding a stack looks like a potential recursion.

However, mlock makes sure the requested range is already contained
within a vma, so no stack expansion will actually happen from mlock.

Should this ever change: the stack expansion mlocks only the newly
expanded range and so will not result in recursive expansion.

Reported-by: Al Viro <viro@...IV.linux.org.uk>
Signed-off-by: Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>
---
 mm/mlock.c | 4 ++++
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)

diff --git a/mm/mlock.c b/mm/mlock.c
index b1647fb..78c4924 100644
--- a/mm/mlock.c
+++ b/mm/mlock.c
@@ -185,6 +185,10 @@ long __mlock_vma_pages_range(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
 	if (vma->vm_flags & (VM_READ | VM_WRITE | VM_EXEC))
 		gup_flags |= FOLL_FORCE;
 
+	/*
+	 * We made sure addr is within a VMA, so the following will
+	 * not result in a stack expansion that recurses back here.
+	 */
 	return __get_user_pages(current, mm, addr, nr_pages, gup_flags,
 				NULL, NULL, nonblocking);
 }
-- 
1.7.11.7

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/