netdev - Re: [PATCH v5 0/2] Remove false-positive VLAs when using max()

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]

Message-ID: <CAGXu5j+5i+56R0KDLMDA=+_DRW5w9aUGCEo0dq6PZvHPBWkM1g@mail.gmail.com>
Date:   Thu, 22 Mar 2018 08:01:25 -0700
From:   Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>
To:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:     Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
        Florian Weimer <fweimer@...hat.com>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@...hat.com>,
        Rasmus Villemoes <linux@...musvillemoes.dk>,
        Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@...radead.org>,
        Miguel Ojeda <miguel.ojeda.sandonis@...il.com>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
        David Laight <David.Laight@...lab.com>,
        Ian Abbott <abbotti@....co.uk>,
        linux-input <linux-input@...r.kernel.org>,
        linux-btrfs <linux-btrfs@...r.kernel.org>,
        Network Development <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Kernel Hardening <kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v5 0/2] Remove false-positive VLAs when using max()

On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 4:23 PM, Linus Torvalds
<torvalds@...ux-foundation.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 17, 2018 at 1:07 PM, Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org> wrote:
>>
>> No luck! :( gcc 4.4 refuses to play along. And, hilariously, not only
>> does it not change the complaint about __builtin_choose_expr(), it
>> also thinks that's a VLA now.
>
> Hmm. So thanks to the diseased mind of Martin Uecker, there's a better
> test for "__is_constant()":
>
>   /* Glory to Martin Uecker <Martin.Uecker@....uni-goettingen.de> */
>   #define __is_constant(a) \
>         (sizeof(int) == sizeof(*(1 ? ((void*)((a) * 0l)) : (int*)1)))
>
> that is actually *specified* by the C standard to work, and doesn't
> even depend on any gcc extensions.

I feel we risk awakening Cthulhu with this. :)

> The reason is some really subtle pointer conversion rules, where the
> type of the ternary operator will depend on whether one of the
> pointers is NULL or not.
>
> And the definition of NULL, in turn, very much depends on "integer
> constant expression that has the value 0".
>
> Are you willing to do one final try on a generic min/max? Same as my
> last patch, but using the above __is_constant() test instead of
> __builtin_constant_p?

So, this time it's not a catastrophic failure with gcc 4.4. Instead it
fails in 11 distinct places:

$ grep "first argument to ‘__builtin_choose_expr’ not a constant" log
| cut -d: -f1-2
crypto/ablkcipher.c:71
crypto/blkcipher.c:70
crypto/skcipher.c:95
mm/percpu.c:2453
net/ceph/osdmap.c:1545
net/ceph/osdmap.c:1756
net/ceph/osdmap.c:1763
mm/kmemleak.c:1371
mm/kmemleak.c:1403
drivers/infiniband/hw/hfi1/pio_copy.c:421
drivers/infiniband/hw/hfi1/pio_copy.c:547

Seems like it doesn't like void * arguments:

mm/percpu.c:
                void *ptr;
...
                base = min(ptr, base);


mm/kmemleak.c:
static void scan_large_block(void *start, void *end)
...
                next = min(start + MAX_SCAN_SIZE, end);


I'll poke a bit more...

-Kees

-- 
Kees Cook
Pixel Security