linux-kernel - Re: [RFC 10/10] kmod: add a sanity check on module loading

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Message-ID: <87y3ytc8ka.fsf@rustcorp.com.au>
Date:   Tue, 03 Jan 2017 10:34:53 +1030
From:   Rusty Russell <rusty@...tcorp.com.au>
To:     "Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@...nel.org>
Cc:     Filipe Manana <fdmanana@...e.com>,
        "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
        "linux-doc\@vger.kernel.org" <linux-doc@...r.kernel.org>,
        rgoldwyn@...e.com, hare <hare@...e.com>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        linux-kselftest@...r.kernel.org,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>,
        Aaron Tomlin <atomlin@...hat.com>, rwright@....com,
        Heinrich Schuchardt <xypron.glpk@....de>,
        Michal Marek <mmarek@...e.com>, martin.wilck@...e.com,
        Jeff Mahoney <jeffm@...e.com>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
        Petr Mladek <pmladek@...e.com>,
        Dmitry Torokhov <dmitry.torokhov@...il.com>,
        Guenter Roeck <linux@...ck-us.net>,
        "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>, shuah@...nel.org,
        DSterba@...e.com, Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>,
        Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@...hat.com>,
        Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@...hat.com>,
        Miroslav Benes <mbenes@...e.cz>, NeilBrown <neilb@...e.com>,
        "linux-kernel\@vger.kernel.o rg" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>,
        Jessica Yu <jeyu@...hat.com>,
        Subash Abhinov Kasiviswanathan <subashab@...eaurora.org>,
        Julia Lawall <julia.lawall@...6.fr>
Subject: Re: [RFC 10/10] kmod: add a sanity check on module loading

"Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@...nel.org> writes:
>> Maybe a similar hack for try_then_request_module(), but many places seem
>> to open-code request_module() so it's not as trivial...

Hi Luis, Jessica (who is the main module maintainer now),

        Back from break, sorry about delay.

> Right, out of ~350 request_module() calls (not included try requests)
> only ~46 check the return value. Hence a validation check, and come to
> think of it, *this* was the issue that originally had me believing
> that in some places we might end up in a null deref --if those open
> coded request_module() calls assume the driver is loaded there could
> be many places where a NULL is inevitable.

Yes, assuming success == module loade is simply a bug.  I wrote
try_then_request_module() to attempt to encapsulate the correct logic
into a single place; maybe we need other helpers to cover (most of?) the
remaining cases?

> Granted, I agree they
> should be fixed, we could add a grammar rule to start nagging at
> driver developers for started, but it does beg the question also of
> what a tightly knit validation for modprobe might look like, and hence
> this patch and now the completed not-yet-posted alias work.

I really think aliases-in-kernel is too heavy a hammer, but a warning
when modprobe "succeeds" and the module still isn't found would be
a Good Thing.

> Would it be worthy as a kconfig kmod debugging aide for now? I can
> follow up with a semantic patch to nag about checking the return value
> of request_module(), and we can  have 0-day then also complain about
> new invalid uses.

Yeah, a warning about this would be win for sure.

BTW, I wrote the original "check-for-module-before-loading" in
module-init-tools, but I'm starting to wonder if it was a premature
optimization.  Have you thought about simply removing it and always
trying to load the module?  If it doesn't slow things down, perhaps
simplicity FTW?

Thanks,
Rusty.