linux-kernel - Re: Potentially unbounded allocations in seq

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Date:	Wed, 11 Dec 2013 17:48:32 +0000
From:	Tvrtko Ursulin <tvrtko.ursulin@...ux.intel.com>
To:	Alexander Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>
Cc:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Potentially unbounded allocations in seq_read?

On Wed, 2013-12-11 at 17:04 +0000, Tvrtko Ursulin wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> It seems that the buffer allocation in seq_read can double in size
> indefinitely, at least I've seen that in practice with /proc/<pid>/smaps
> (attempting to double m->size to 4M on a read of 1000 bytes). This
> produces an ugly WARN_ON_ONCE, which should perhaps be avoided? (given
> that it can be triggered by userspace at will)
> 
> From the top comment in seq_file.c one would think that it is a
> fundamental limitation of the current code that everything which will be
> read (even if in chunks) needs to be in the kernel side buffer at the
> same time?

Oh-oh, seems that m->size is doubled on every read. So if app is reading
with a buffer smaller than data available, it can do nine reads before
it hits a >MAX_ORDER allocation. Not good. :)

Regards,

Tvrtko


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