linux-kernel - [PATCH] sethostname: dump new hostname into RNG

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Message-Id: <20220927094039.1563219-1-Jason@zx2c4.com>
Date:   Tue, 27 Sep 2022 11:40:39 +0200
From:   "Jason A. Donenfeld" <Jason@...c4.com>
To:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Cc:     "Jason A. Donenfeld" <Jason@...c4.com>,
        Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Dominik Brodowski <linux@...inikbrodowski.net>
Subject: [PATCH] sethostname: dump new hostname into RNG

On some small machines with little entropy, a quasi-unique hostname is
sometimes a relevant factor. I've seen, for example, 8 character
alpha-numeric serial numbers. In addition, the time at which the hostname
is set is usually a decent measurement of how long early boot took. So,
call add_device_randomness() on new hostnames, which feeds its arguments
to the RNG in addition to a fresh cycle counter.

Low cost hooks like this never hurt and can only ever help, and since
this costs basically nothing for an operation that is never a fast path,
this is an overall easy win.

Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc: Dominik Brodowski <linux@...inikbrodowski.net>
Signed-off-by: Jason A. Donenfeld <Jason@...c4.com>
---
 kernel/sys.c | 1 +
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)

diff --git a/kernel/sys.c b/kernel/sys.c
index b911fa6d81ab..7b7f973ea585 100644
--- a/kernel/sys.c
+++ b/kernel/sys.c
@@ -1366,6 +1366,7 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE2(sethostname, char __user *, name, int, len)
 	if (!copy_from_user(tmp, name, len)) {
 		struct new_utsname *u;

+		add_device_randomness(tmp, len);
 		down_write(&uts_sem);
 		u = utsname();
 		memcpy(u->nodename, tmp, len);
-- 
2.37.3