linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH V2] mm: Allow userland to request that the kernel clear memory on release

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Date:   Fri, 26 Apr 2019 07:31:35 +0200
From:   Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>
To:     Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>
Cc:     Matthew Garrett <matthewgarrett@...gle.com>,
        Linux-MM <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
        kernel list <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Matthew Garrett <mjg59@...gle.com>,
        Linux API <linux-api@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH V2] mm: Allow userland to request that the kernel clear
 memory on release

On Thu 25-04-19 14:42:52, Jann Horn wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 2:14 PM Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org> wrote:
> [...]
> > On Wed 24-04-19 14:10:39, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> > > From: Matthew Garrett <mjg59@...gle.com>
> > >
> > > Applications that hold secrets and wish to avoid them leaking can use
> > > mlock() to prevent the page from being pushed out to swap and
> > > MADV_DONTDUMP to prevent it from being included in core dumps. Applications
> > > can also use atexit() handlers to overwrite secrets on application exit.
> > > However, if an attacker can reboot the system into another OS, they can
> > > dump the contents of RAM and extract secrets. We can avoid this by setting
> > > CONFIG_RESET_ATTACK_MITIGATION on UEFI systems in order to request that the
> > > firmware wipe the contents of RAM before booting another OS, but this means
> > > rebooting takes a *long* time - the expected behaviour is for a clean
> > > shutdown to remove the request after scrubbing secrets from RAM in order to
> > > avoid this.
> > >
> > > Unfortunately, if an application exits uncleanly, its secrets may still be
> > > present in RAM. This can't be easily fixed in userland (eg, if the OOM
> > > killer decides to kill a process holding secrets, we're not going to be able
> > > to avoid that), so this patch adds a new flag to madvise() to allow userland
> > > to request that the kernel clear the covered pages whenever the page
> > > reference count hits zero. Since vm_flags is already full on 32-bit, it
> > > will only work on 64-bit systems.
> [...]
> > > diff --git a/mm/madvise.c b/mm/madvise.c
> > > index 21a7881a2db4..989c2fde15cf 100644
> > > --- a/mm/madvise.c
> > > +++ b/mm/madvise.c
> > > @@ -92,6 +92,22 @@ static long madvise_behavior(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
> > >       case MADV_KEEPONFORK:
> > >               new_flags &= ~VM_WIPEONFORK;
> > >               break;
> > > +     case MADV_WIPEONRELEASE:
> > > +             /* MADV_WIPEONRELEASE is only supported on anonymous memory. */
> > > +             if (VM_WIPEONRELEASE == 0 || vma->vm_file ||
> > > +                 vma->vm_flags & VM_SHARED) {
> > > +                     error = -EINVAL;
> > > +                     goto out;
> > > +             }
> > > +             new_flags |= VM_WIPEONRELEASE;
> > > +             break;
> 
> An interesting effect of this is that it will be possible to set this
> on a CoW anon VMA in a fork() child, and then the semantics in the
> parent will be subtly different - e.g. if the parent vmsplice()d a
> CoWed page into a pipe, then forked an unprivileged child, the child

Maybe a stupid question. How do you fork an unprivileged child (without
exec)? Child would have to drop priviledges on its own, no?

> set MADV_WIPEONRELEASE on its VMA, the parent died somehow, and then
> the child died, the page in the pipe would be zeroed out. A child
> should not be able to affect its parent like this, I think. If this
> was an mmap() flag instead of a madvise() command, that issue could be
> avoided.

With a VMA flag underneath, I think you can do an early CoW during fork
to prevent from that.

> Alternatively, if adding more mmap() flags doesn't work,
> perhaps you could scan the VMA and ensure that it contains no pages
> yet, or something like that?
> 
> > > diff --git a/mm/memory.c b/mm/memory.c
> > > index ab650c21bccd..ff78b527660e 100644
> > > --- a/mm/memory.c
> > > +++ b/mm/memory.c
> > > @@ -1091,6 +1091,9 @@ static unsigned long zap_pte_range(struct mmu_gather *tlb,
> > >                       page_remove_rmap(page, false);
> > >                       if (unlikely(page_mapcount(page) < 0))
> > >                               print_bad_pte(vma, addr, ptent, page);
> > > +                     if (unlikely(vma->vm_flags & VM_WIPEONRELEASE) &&
> > > +                         page_mapcount(page) == 0)
> > > +                             clear_highpage(page);
> > >                       if (unlikely(__tlb_remove_page(tlb, page))) {
> > >                               force_flush = 1;
> > >                               addr += PAGE_SIZE;
> 
> Should something like this perhaps be added in page_remove_rmap()
> instead? That's where the mapcount is decremented; and looking at
> other callers of page_remove_rmap(), in particular the following ones
> look interesting:

Well spotted!

-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs