linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/3] ubsan: Add trap instrumentation option

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]

Date:   Thu, 21 Nov 2019 15:52:52 +0300
From:   Andrey Ryabinin <aryabinin@...tuozzo.com>
To:     Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>
Cc:     Elena Petrova <lenaptr@...gle.com>,
        Alexander Potapenko <glider@...gle.com>,
        Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@...gle.com>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@...cle.com>,
        "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <gustavo@...eddedor.com>,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
        Ard Biesheuvel <ard.biesheuvel@...aro.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        kasan-dev@...glegroups.com, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/3] ubsan: Add trap instrumentation option

On 11/20/19 4:06 AM, Kees Cook wrote:

> +config UBSAN_TRAP
> +	bool "On Sanitizer warnings, stop the offending kernel thread"

That description seems inaccurate and confusing. It's not about kernel threads.
UBSAN may trigger in any context - kernel thread/user process/interrupts... 
Probably most of the kernel code runs in the context of user process, so "stop the offending kernel thread"
doesn't sound right.

> +	depends on UBSAN
> +	depends on $(cc-option, -fsanitize-undefined-trap-on-error)
> +	help
> +	  Building kernels with Sanitizer features enabled tends to grow
> +	  the kernel size by over 5%, due to adding all the debugging
> +	  text on failure paths. To avoid this, Sanitizer instrumentation
> +	  can just issue a trap. This reduces the kernel size overhead but
> +	  turns all warnings into full thread-killing exceptions.

I think we should mention that enabling this option also has a potential to 
turn some otherwise harmless bugs into more severe problems like lockups, kernel panic etc..
So the people who enable this would better understand what they signing up for.