linux-kernel - Re: BTI interaction between seccomp filters in systemd and glibc mprotect calls, causing service failures

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Message-ID: <180cd894-d42d-2bdb-093c-b5360b0ecb1e@gmail.com>
Date:   Fri, 23 Oct 2020 01:24:14 +0300
From:   Topi Miettinen <toiwoton@...il.com>
To:     Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>
Cc:     Szabolcs Nagy <szabolcs.nagy@....com>,
        Jeremy Linton <jeremy.linton@....com>,
        "linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org" 
        <linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org>, libc-alpha@...rceware.org,
        systemd-devel@...ts.freedesktop.org,
        "linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@....com>,
        Mark Brown <broonie@...nel.org>,
        Dave Martin <dave.martin@....com>,
        Catalin Marinas <Catalin.Marinas@....com>,
        Will Deacon <will.deacon@....com>,
        Salvatore Mesoraca <s.mesoraca16@...il.com>,
        kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com,
        linux-hardening@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: BTI interaction between seccomp filters in systemd and glibc
 mprotect calls, causing service failures

On 22.10.2020 23.02, Kees Cook wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 22, 2020 at 01:39:07PM +0300, Topi Miettinen wrote:
>> But I think SELinux has a more complete solution (execmem) which can track
>> the pages better than is possible with seccomp solution which has a very
>> narrow field of view. Maybe this facility could be made available to
>> non-SELinux systems, for example with prctl()? Then the in-kernel MDWX could
>> allow mprotect(PROT_EXEC | PROT_BTI) in case the backing file hasn't been
>> modified, the source filesystem isn't writable for the calling process and
>> the file descriptor isn't created with memfd_create().
> 
> Right. The problem here is that systemd is attempting to mediate a
> state change using only syscall details (i.e. with seccomp) instead of
> a stateful analysis. Using a MAC is likely the only sane way to do that.
> SELinux is a bit difficult to adjust "on the fly" the way systemd would
> like to do things, and the more dynamic approach seen with SARA[1] isn't
> yet in the kernel.

SARA looks interesting. What is missing is a prctl() to enable all W^X 
protections irrevocably for the current process, then systemd could 
enable it for services with MemoryDenyWriteExecute=yes.

I didn't also see specific measures against memfd_create() or file 
system W&X, but perhaps those can be added later. Maybe pkey_mprotect() 
is not handled either unless it uses the same LSM hook as mprotect().

> Trying to enforce memory W^X protection correctly
> via seccomp isn't really going to work well, as far as I can see.

Not in general, but I think it can work well in context of system 
services. Then you can ensure that for a specific service, 
memfd_create() is blocked by seccomp and the file systems are W^X 
because of mount namespaces etc., so there should not be any means to 
construct arbitrary executable pages.

-Topi