From: Guillaume Nault <g.nault@alphalink.fr>
To: Eric Biggers <ebiggers3@gmail.com>
Cc: linux-ppp@vger.kernel.org, Paul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org>,
netdev@vger.kernel.org, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, syzkaller-bugs@googlegroups.com,
Eric Biggers <ebiggers@google.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] ppp: remove the PPPIOCDETACH ioctl
Date: Wed, 23 May 2018 15:57:08 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20180523135708.GB1569@alphalink.fr> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20180523035952.25768-1-ebiggers3@gmail.com>
On Tue, May 22, 2018 at 08:59:52PM -0700, Eric Biggers wrote:
> From: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@google.com>
>
> The PPPIOCDETACH ioctl effectively tries to "close" the given ppp file
> before f_count has reached 0, which is fundamentally a bad idea. It
> does check 'f_count < 2', which excludes concurrent operations on the
> file since they would only be possible with a shared fd table, in which
> case each fdget() would take a file reference. However, it fails to
> account for the fact that even with 'f_count == 1' the file can still be
> linked into epoll instances. As reported by syzbot, this can trivially
> be used to cause a use-after-free.
>
> Yet, the only known user of PPPIOCDETACH is pppd versions older than
> ppp-2.4.2, which was released almost 15 years ago (November 2003).
> Also, PPPIOCDETACH apparently stopped working reliably at around the
> same time, when the f_count check was added to the kernel, e.g. see
> https://lkml.org/lkml/2002/12/31/83. Also, the current 'f_count < 2'
> check makes PPPIOCDETACH only work in single-threaded applications; it
> always fails if called from a multithreaded application.
>
> All pppd versions released in the last 15 years just close() the file
> descriptor instead.
>
> Therefore, instead of hacking around this bug by exporting epoll
> internals to modules, and probably missing other related bugs, just
> remove the PPPIOCDETACH ioctl and see if anyone actually notices.
>
> Reported-by: syzbot+16363c99d4134717c05b@syzkaller.appspotmail.com
> Fixes: 1da177e4c3f4 ("Linux-2.6.12-rc2")
> Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
> Signed-off-by: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@google.com>
> ---
> Documentation/networking/ppp_generic.txt | 6 -----
> drivers/net/ppp/ppp_generic.c | 29 ------------------------
> fs/compat_ioctl.c | 1 -
> include/uapi/linux/ppp-ioctl.h | 1 -
> 4 files changed, 37 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/networking/ppp_generic.txt b/Documentation/networking/ppp_generic.txt
> index 091d20273dcb..61daf4b39600 100644
> --- a/Documentation/networking/ppp_generic.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/networking/ppp_generic.txt
> @@ -300,12 +300,6 @@ unattached instance are:
> The ioctl calls available on an instance of /dev/ppp attached to a
> channel are:
>
> -* PPPIOCDETACH detaches the instance from the channel. This ioctl is
> - deprecated since the same effect can be achieved by closing the
> - instance. In order to prevent possible races this ioctl will fail
> - with an EINVAL error if more than one file descriptor refers to this
> - instance (i.e. as a result of dup(), dup2() or fork()).
> -
> * PPPIOCCONNECT connects this channel to a PPP interface. The
> argument should point to an int containing the interface unit
> number. It will return an EINVAL error if the channel is already
> diff --git a/drivers/net/ppp/ppp_generic.c b/drivers/net/ppp/ppp_generic.c
> index dc7c7ec43202..dce8812fe802 100644
> --- a/drivers/net/ppp/ppp_generic.c
> +++ b/drivers/net/ppp/ppp_generic.c
> @@ -603,35 +603,6 @@ static long ppp_ioctl(struct file *file, unsigned int cmd, unsigned long arg)
> goto out;
> }
>
> - if (cmd == PPPIOCDETACH) {
> - /*
> - * We have to be careful here... if the file descriptor
> - * has been dup'd, we could have another process in the
> - * middle of a poll using the same file *, so we had
> - * better not free the interface data structures -
> - * instead we fail the ioctl. Even in this case, we
> - * shut down the interface if we are the owner of it.
> - * Actually, we should get rid of PPPIOCDETACH, userland
> - * (i.e. pppd) could achieve the same effect by closing
> - * this fd and reopening /dev/ppp.
> - */
> - err = -EINVAL;
> - if (pf->kind == INTERFACE) {
> - ppp = PF_TO_PPP(pf);
> - rtnl_lock();
> - if (file == ppp->owner)
> - unregister_netdevice(ppp->dev);
> - rtnl_unlock();
> - }
> - if (atomic_long_read(&file->f_count) < 2) {
> - ppp_release(NULL, file);
> - err = 0;
> - } else
> - pr_warn("PPPIOCDETACH file->f_count=%ld\n",
> - atomic_long_read(&file->f_count));
> - goto out;
> - }
> -
I'd rather add
+ if (cmd == PPPIOCDETACH) {
+ err = -EINVAL;
+ goto out;
+ }
Making PPPIOCDETACH unknown to ppp_generic means that the ioctl would
be handled by the underlying channel when pf->kind == CHANNEL (see the
chan->ops->ioctl() call further down). That shouldn't be a problem per
se, but even though PPPIOCDETACH is unsupported, I feel that it should
remain a ppp_generic thing. I don't really want its value to be reused
for other purposes in the future or have different behaviour depending
on the underlying channel.
Also PPPIOCDETACH can already fail with -EINVAL. Therefore, if ever
there really were programs out there using this call, they'd already
have to handle this case. Unconditionally returning -EINVAL would
further minimise possibilities for breakage.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2018-05-23 13:57 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 9+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
[not found] <20180523032958.GE658@sol.localdomain>
2018-05-23 3:59 ` [PATCH] ppp: remove the PPPIOCDETACH ioctl Eric Biggers
2018-05-23 13:57 ` Guillaume Nault [this message]
2018-05-23 15:56 ` David Miller
2018-05-23 21:17 ` Eric Biggers
2018-05-23 21:37 ` [PATCH v2] " Eric Biggers
2018-05-23 23:04 ` Paul Mackerras
2018-05-24 14:04 ` Guillaume Nault
2018-05-25 2:55 ` David Miller
2018-06-06 9:01 ` Walter Harms
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=20180523135708.GB1569@alphalink.fr \
--to=g.nault@alphalink.fr \
--cc=ebiggers3@gmail.com \
--cc=ebiggers@google.com \
--cc=linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org \
--cc=linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org \
--cc=linux-ppp@vger.kernel.org \
--cc=netdev@vger.kernel.org \
--cc=paulus@samba.org \
--cc=syzkaller-bugs@googlegroups.com \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).