linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v4] firmware_loader: use kernel credentials when reading firmware

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Date:   Tue, 3 May 2022 13:03:54 -0700
From:   Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@...nel.org>
To:     Thiébaud Weksteen <tweek@...gle.com>
Cc:     Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Qian Cai <quic_qiancai@...cinc.com>,
        John Stultz <jstultz@...gle.com>,
        Jeffrey Vander Stoep <jeffv@...gle.com>,
        Saravana Kannan <saravanak@...gle.com>,
        Alistair Delva <adelva@...gle.com>,
        Adam Shih <adamshih@...gle.com>, selinux@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, stable@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v4] firmware_loader: use kernel credentials when reading
 firmware

On Mon, May 02, 2022 at 10:49:52AM +1000, Thiébaud Weksteen wrote:
> Device drivers may decide to not load firmware when probed to avoid
> slowing down the boot process should the firmware filesystem not be
> available yet. In this case, the firmware loading request may be done
> when a device file associated with the driver is first accessed. The
> credentials of the userspace process accessing the device file may be
> used to validate access to the firmware files requested by the driver.
> Ensure that the kernel assumes the responsibility of reading the
> firmware.
> 
> This was observed on Android for a graphic driver loading their firmware
> when the device file (e.g. /dev/mali0) was first opened by userspace
> (i.e. surfaceflinger). The security context of surfaceflinger was used
> to validate the access to the firmware file (e.g.
> /vendor/firmware/mali.bin).
> 
> Previously, Android configurations were not setting up the
> firmware_class.path command line argument and were relying on the
> userspace fallback mechanism. In this case, the security context of the
> userspace daemon (i.e. ueventd) was consistently used to read firmware
> files. More Android devices are now found to set firmware_class.path
> which gives the kernel the opportunity to read the firmware directly
> (via kernel_read_file_from_path_initns). In this scenario, the current
> process credentials were used, even if unrelated to the loading of the
> firmware file.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Thiébaud Weksteen <tweek@...gle.com>
> Cc: <stable@...r.kernel.org> # 5.10

Acked-by: Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@...nel.org>

  Luis