linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] netfilter: cttimeout: remove VLA usage

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

Message-ID: <1520957627.2049.37.camel@perches.com>
Date:   Tue, 13 Mar 2018 09:13:47 -0700
From:   Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>
To:     Pablo Neira Ayuso <pablo@...filter.org>
Cc:     "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <gustavo@...eddedor.com>,
        Jozsef Kadlecsik <kadlec@...ckhole.kfki.hu>,
        Florian Westphal <fw@...len.de>,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
        netfilter-devel@...r.kernel.org, coreteam@...filter.org,
        netdev@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Kernel Hardening <kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com>,
        Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>,
        "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <garsilva@...eddedor.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] netfilter: cttimeout: remove VLA usage

On Tue, 2018-03-13 at 15:59 +0100, Pablo Neira Ayuso wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 04:58:38PM -0700, Joe Perches wrote:
> > On Mon, 2018-03-12 at 18:14 -0500, Gustavo A. R. Silva wrote:
> > > In preparation to enabling -Wvla, remove VLA and replace it
> > > with dynamic memory allocation.
> > > 
> > > From a security viewpoint, the use of Variable Length Arrays can be
> > > a vector for stack overflow attacks. Also, in general, as the code
> > > evolves it is easy to lose track of how big a VLA can get. Thus, we
> > > can end up having segfaults that are hard to debug.
> > > 
> > > Also, fixed as part of the directive to remove all VLAs from
> > 
> > []
> > > diff --git a/net/netfilter/nfnetlink_cttimeout.c b/net/netfilter/nfnetlink_cttimeout.c
> > 
> > []
> > > @@ -51,19 +51,27 @@ ctnl_timeout_parse_policy(void *timeouts,
> > >  			  const struct nf_conntrack_l4proto *l4proto,
> > >  			  struct net *net, const struct nlattr *attr)
> > >  {
> > > +	struct nlattr **tb;
> > >  	int ret = 0;
> > >  
> > > -	if (likely(l4proto->ctnl_timeout.nlattr_to_obj)) {
> > > -		struct nlattr *tb[l4proto->ctnl_timeout.nlattr_max+1];
> > > +	if (!l4proto->ctnl_timeout.nlattr_to_obj)
> > > +		return 0;
> > 
> > Why not
> > 	if unlikely(!...)
> 
> This is control plane code - not packet path - I think we should just
> let the compiler decide on this one, not really need to provide an
> explicit hint here.

I don't have an issue with that, but it should probably be
mentioned in the changelog as it's unrelated to VLA removal.