Re: [PATCH v5 1/3] open: add close_range()

[Kyle Evans <kevans@freebsd.org>]

On Fri, Jun 5, 2020 at 9:54 PM Kyle Evans <kevans@freebsd.org> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jun 5, 2020 at 9:55 AM Szabolcs Nagy <nsz@port70.net> wrote:
> >
> > * Christian Brauner <christian.brauner@ubuntu.com> [2020-06-02 22:42:17 +0200]:
> > > [... snip ...]
> > >
> > > First, it helps to close all file descriptors of an exec()ing task. This
> > > can be done safely via (quoting Al's example from [1] verbatim):
> > >
> > >         /* that exec is sensitive */
> > >         unshare(CLONE_FILES);
> > >         /* we don't want anything past stderr here */
> > >         close_range(3, ~0U);
> > >         execve(....);
> >
> > this api needs a documentation patch if there isn't yet.
> >
> > currently there is no libc interface contract in place that
> > says which calls may use libc internal fds e.g. i've seen
> >
> >   openlog(...) // opens libc internal syslog fd
> >   ...
> >   fork()
> >   closefrom(...) // close syslog fd
> >   open(...) // something that reuses the closed fd
> >   syslog(...) // unsafe: uses the wrong fd
> >   execve(...)
> >
> > syslog uses a libc internal fd that the user trampled on and
> > this can go bad in many ways depending on what libc apis are
> > used between closefrom (or equivalent) and exec.
> >
>
> Documentation is good. :-) I think you'll find that while this example
> seems to be innocuous on FreeBSD (and likely other *BSD), this is an
> atypical scenario and generally not advised.  You would usually not
> start closing until you're actually ready to exec/fail.
>

Minor correction: not innocuous here, either; O_CLOFORK is not yet a thing. :-)