From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S263529AbTEDGjz (ORCPT ); Sun, 4 May 2003 02:39:55 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S263534AbTEDGjz (ORCPT ); Sun, 4 May 2003 02:39:55 -0400 Received: from rtlab.med.cornell.edu ([140.251.145.175]:4511 "HELO openlab.rtlab.org") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S263529AbTEDGjx (ORCPT ); Sun, 4 May 2003 02:39:53 -0400 Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 02:52:21 -0400 (EDT) From: "Calin A. Culianu" X-X-Sender: To: Ingo Molnar Cc: Carl-Daniel Hailfinger , Subject: Re: [Announcement] "Exec Shield", new Linux security feature In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org I don't really get it, but I could be a bit braindead now. I still don't understand how the 0-16MB addresses are considered 'unjumpable' using the ASCII string stack-smashing exploit. IIRC, x86 ints have the high-order byte _last_ (ie the fourth byte). What's to stop someone from, say, smashing a buffer (and consequently return-address) on the stack using something like {0x01, 0x01, 0x01, 0x00} which is really address '65793' in base-10. The above is a valid ASCII string (3 1's followed by a NUL) which could conceivably end up on the stack as the result of an errant strcpy() or gets() or whatever... Clearly this address is less than 16MB, so then it must be possible to jump to memory below 16MB. Am I missing something?? -Calin On Sat, 3 May 2003, Ingo Molnar wrote: > > On Fri, 2 May 2003, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote: > > > Ingo Molnar wrote: > > > > > > Furthermore, the kernel also remaps all PROT_EXEC mappings to the > > > so-called ASCII-armor area, which on x86 is the addresses 0-16MB. These > > [snipped] > > > In the above layout, the highest executable address is 0x01003fff, ie. > > > every executable address is in the ASCII-armor. > > > > If my math is correct, > > 0x01000000 is 16 MB boundary > > 0x01003fff is outside the ASCII-armor. > > the ASCII-armor, more precisely, is between addresses 0x00000000 and > 0x0100ffff. Ie. 16 MB + 64K. [in the remaining 64K the \0 character is in > the second byte of the address.] So the 0x01003fff address is still inside > the ASCII-armor. > > > Another question: Last time I checked, there were some problems with > > binary only drivers (to name one, NVidia graphics) and a non-executable > > stack. Has this been resolved? > > i'm not using any binary-only drivers, so i have no idea. But as long as > they use PROT_EXEC areas for code, they should be safe. > > Ingo > > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ >