linux-kernel - [PATCH v2 4/4] x86: Zero-pad the VVAR page

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Date:	Thu, 27 Feb 2014 16:18:15 -0800
From:	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>
To:	Stefani Seibold <stefani@...bold.net>, X86 ML <x86@...nel.org>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
Cc:	Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
	Andi Kleen <ak@...ux.intel.com>,
	Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@...hat.com>,
	John Stultz <john.stultz@...aro.org>,
	Pavel Emelyanov <xemul@...allels.com>,
	Cyrill Gorcunov <gorcunov@...nvz.org>,
	andriy.shevchenko@...ux.intel.com, Martin.Runge@...de-schwarz.com,
	Andreas.Brief@...de-schwarz.com,
	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>
Subject: [PATCH v2 4/4] x86: Zero-pad the VVAR page

By coincidence, the VVAR page is at the end of an ELF segment.  As a
result, if it ends up being a partial page, the kernel loader will
leave garbage behind at the end of the vvar page.  Zero-pad it to a
full page to fix this issue.

This has probably been broken since the VVAR page was introduced.
On QEMU, if you dump the run-time contents of the VVAR page, you can
find entertaining strings from seabios left behind.

It's remotely possible that this is a security bug -- conceivably
there's some BIOS out there that leaves something sensitive in the
few K of memory that is exposed to userspace.

Signed-off-by: Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>
---
 arch/x86/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S | 5 +++++
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+)

diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S b/arch/x86/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
index 1d4897b..49edf2d 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
@@ -164,6 +164,11 @@ SECTIONS
 #undef __VVAR_KERNEL_LDS
 #undef EMIT_VVAR
 
+		/*
+		 * Pad the rest of the page with zeros.  Otherwise the loader
+		 * can leave garbage here.
+		 */
+		. = __vvar_beginning_hack + PAGE_SIZE;
 	} :data
 
        . = ALIGN(__vvar_page + PAGE_SIZE, PAGE_SIZE);
-- 
1.8.5.3

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