From: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>,
Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>,
"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>,
Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au>,
Mathias Krause <minipli@googlemail.com>,
Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>,
Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
x86@kernel.org, Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>,
PaX Team <pageexec@freemail.hu>, Emese Revfy <re.emese@gmail.com>,
kernel-hardening@lists.openwall.com,
linux-arch <linux-arch@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: [kernel-hardening] [PATCH v2 2/4] introduce post-init read-only memory
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2015 15:31:24 -0800 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <1448494286-16029-3-git-send-email-keescook@chromium.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1448494286-16029-1-git-send-email-keescook@chromium.org>
One of the easiest ways to protect the kernel from attack is to reduce
the internal attack surface exposed when a "write" flaw is available. By
making as much of the kernel read-only as possible, we reduce the
attack surface.
Many things are written to only during __init, and never changed
again. These cannot be made "const" since the compiler will do the wrong
thing (we do actually need to write to them). Instead, move these items
into a memory region that will be made read-only during mark_rodata_ro()
which happens after all kernel __init code has finished.
This introduces __ro_after_init as a way to mark such memory, and adds
some documentation about the existing __read_mostly marking.
Based on work by PaX Team and Brad Spengler.
Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
---
include/asm-generic/vmlinux.lds.h | 1 +
include/linux/cache.h | 14 ++++++++++++++
2 files changed, 15 insertions(+)
diff --git a/include/asm-generic/vmlinux.lds.h b/include/asm-generic/vmlinux.lds.h
index c4bd0e2c173c..772c784ba763 100644
--- a/include/asm-generic/vmlinux.lds.h
+++ b/include/asm-generic/vmlinux.lds.h
@@ -256,6 +256,7 @@
.rodata : AT(ADDR(.rodata) - LOAD_OFFSET) { \
VMLINUX_SYMBOL(__start_rodata) = .; \
*(.rodata) *(.rodata.*) \
+ *(.data..ro_after_init) /* Read only after init */ \
*(__vermagic) /* Kernel version magic */ \
. = ALIGN(8); \
VMLINUX_SYMBOL(__start___tracepoints_ptrs) = .; \
diff --git a/include/linux/cache.h b/include/linux/cache.h
index 17e7e82d2aa7..ac777fe01d92 100644
--- a/include/linux/cache.h
+++ b/include/linux/cache.h
@@ -12,10 +12,24 @@
#define SMP_CACHE_BYTES L1_CACHE_BYTES
#endif
+/*
+ * __read_mostly is used to keep rarely changing variables out of frequently
+ * updated cachelines. If an architecture doesn't support it, ignore the
+ * hint.
+ */
#ifndef __read_mostly
#define __read_mostly
#endif
+/*
+ * __read_only is used to mark things that are read-only after init (i.e.
+ * after mark_rodata_ro() has been called). These are effectively read-only,
+ * but may get written to during init, so can't live in .rodata (via "const").
+ */
+#ifndef __ro_after_init
+#define __ro_after_init __attribute__((__section__(".data..ro_after_init")))
+#endif
+
#ifndef ____cacheline_aligned
#define ____cacheline_aligned __attribute__((__aligned__(SMP_CACHE_BYTES)))
#endif
--
1.9.1
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2015-11-25 23:31 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 16+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2015-11-25 23:31 [kernel-hardening] [PATCH v2 0/4] introduce post-init read-only memory Kees Cook
2015-11-25 23:31 ` [kernel-hardening] [PATCH v2 1/4] init: create cmdline param to disable readonly Kees Cook
2015-11-26 0:37 ` [kernel-hardening] " PaX Team
2015-11-26 0:44 ` [kernel-hardening] " Greg KH
2015-11-26 7:51 ` [kernel-hardening] " Ingo Molnar
2015-11-30 21:52 ` Kees Cook
2015-11-30 22:24 ` Russell King - ARM Linux
2015-11-30 22:34 ` Kees Cook
2015-12-01 7:24 ` Ingo Molnar
2015-12-01 7:19 ` Heiko Carstens
2015-11-25 23:31 ` Kees Cook [this message]
2015-11-26 0:15 ` [kernel-hardening] Re: [PATCH v2 2/4] introduce post-init read-only memory PaX Team
2015-11-30 22:24 ` H. Peter Anvin
2015-12-09 19:35 ` Kees Cook
2015-11-25 23:31 ` [kernel-hardening] [PATCH v2 3/4] lkdtm: verify that __ro_after_init works correctly Kees Cook
2015-11-25 23:31 ` [kernel-hardening] [PATCH v2 4/4] x86, vdso: mark vDSO read-only after init Kees Cook
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