linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v4 14/36] lib: add allocation tagging support for memory allocation profiling

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Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2024 19:34:44 -0500
From: Kent Overstreet <kent.overstreet@...ux.dev>
To: Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>
Cc: Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@...gle.com>, akpm@...ux-foundation.org, 
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Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 14/36] lib: add allocation tagging support for memory
 allocation profiling

On Wed, Feb 21, 2024 at 04:25:02PM -0800, Kees Cook wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 21, 2024 at 06:29:17PM -0500, Kent Overstreet wrote:
> > On Wed, Feb 21, 2024 at 03:05:32PM -0800, Kees Cook wrote:
> > > On Wed, Feb 21, 2024 at 11:40:27AM -0800, Suren Baghdasaryan wrote:
> > > > [...]
> > > > +struct alloc_tag {
> > > > +	struct codetag			ct;
> > > > +	struct alloc_tag_counters __percpu	*counters;
> > > > +} __aligned(8);
> > > > [...]
> > > > +#define DEFINE_ALLOC_TAG(_alloc_tag)						\
> > > > +	static DEFINE_PER_CPU(struct alloc_tag_counters, _alloc_tag_cntr);	\
> > > > +	static struct alloc_tag _alloc_tag __used __aligned(8)			\
> > > > +	__section("alloc_tags") = {						\
> > > > +		.ct = CODE_TAG_INIT,						\
> > > > +		.counters = &_alloc_tag_cntr };
> > > > [...]
> > > > +static inline struct alloc_tag *alloc_tag_save(struct alloc_tag *tag)
> > > > +{
> > > > +	swap(current->alloc_tag, tag);
> > > > +	return tag;
> > > > +}
> > > 
> > > Future security hardening improvement idea based on this infrastructure:
> > > it should be possible to implement per-allocation-site kmem caches. For
> > > example, we could create:
> > > 
> > > struct alloc_details {
> > > 	u32 flags;
> > > 	union {
> > > 		u32 size; /* not valid after __init completes */
> > > 		struct kmem_cache *cache;
> > > 	};
> > > };
> > > 
> > > - add struct alloc_details to struct alloc_tag
> > > - move the tags section into .ro_after_init
> > > - extend alloc_hooks() to populate flags and size:
> > > 	.flags = __builtin_constant_p(size) ? KMALLOC_ALLOCATE_FIXED
> > > 					    : KMALLOC_ALLOCATE_BUCKETS;
> > > 	.size = __builtin_constant_p(size) ? size : SIZE_MAX;
> > > - during kernel start or module init, walk the alloc_tag list
> > >   and create either a fixed-size kmem_cache or to allocate a
> > >   full set of kmalloc-buckets, and update the "cache" member.
> > > - adjust kmalloc core routines to use current->alloc_tag->cache instead
> > >   of using the global buckets.
> > > 
> > > This would get us fully separated allocations, producing better than
> > > type-based levels of granularity, exceeding what we have currently with
> > > CONFIG_RANDOM_KMALLOC_CACHES.
> > > 
> > > Does this look possible, or am I misunderstanding something in the
> > > infrastructure being created here?
> > 
> > Definitely possible, but... would we want this?
> 
> Yes, very very much. One of the worst and mostly unaddressed weaknesses
> with the kernel right now is use-after-free based type confusion[0], which
> depends on merged caches (or cache reuse).
> 
> This doesn't solve cross-allocator (kmalloc/page_alloc) type confusion
> (as terrifyingly demonstrated[1] by Jann Horn), but it does help with
> what has been a very common case of "use msg_msg to impersonate your
> target object"[2] exploitation.

We have a ton of code that references PAGE_SIZE and uses the page
allocator completely unnecessarily - that's something worth harping
about at conferences; if we could motivate people to clean that stuff up
it'd have a lot of positive effects.

> > That would produce a _lot_ of kmem caches
> 
> Fewer than you'd expect, but yes, there is some overhead. However,
> out-of-tree forks of Linux have successfully experimented with this
> already and seen good results[3].

So in that case - I don't think there's any need for a separate
alloc_details; we'd just add a kmem_cache * to alloc_tag and then hook
into the codetag init/unload path to create and destroy the kmem caches.

No need to adjust the slab code either; alloc_hooks() itself could
dispatch to kmem_cache_alloc() instead of kmalloc() if this is in use.