[PATCH v2 1/8] exec: introduce cred_guard_light

[Jann Horn <jann@thejh.net>]

This is a new per-threadgroup lock that can often be taken instead of
cred_guard_mutex and has less deadlock potential. I'm doing this because
Oleg Nesterov mentioned the potential for deadlocks, in particular if a
debugged task is stuck in execve, trying to get rid of a ptrace-stopped
thread, and the debugger attempts to inspect procfs files of the debugged
task.

The binfmt handlers (in particular for elf_fdpic and flat) might still
call VFS read and mmap operations on the binary with the lock held, but
not open operations (as is the case with cred_guard_mutex).

An rwlock would be more appropriate here, but apparently those don't
have _killable variants of the locking functions?

This is a preparation patch for using proper locking in more places.

Reported-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Jann Horn <jann@thejh.net>
---
 fs/exec.c                 | 15 ++++++++++++++-
 include/linux/init_task.h |  1 +
 include/linux/sched.h     | 10 ++++++++++
 kernel/fork.c             |  1 +
 kernel/ptrace.c           | 10 ++++++++++
 5 files changed, 36 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/fs/exec.c b/fs/exec.c
index 6fcfb3f..84430ee 100644
--- a/fs/exec.c
+++ b/fs/exec.c
@@ -1238,6 +1238,10 @@ int flush_old_exec(struct linux_binprm * bprm)
 	if (retval)
 		goto out;
 
+	retval = mutex_lock_killable(&current->signal->cred_guard_light);
+	if (retval)
+		goto out;
+
 	/*
 	 * Must be called _before_ exec_mmap() as bprm->mm is
 	 * not visibile until then. This also enables the update
@@ -1251,7 +1255,7 @@ int flush_old_exec(struct linux_binprm * bprm)
 	acct_arg_size(bprm, 0);
 	retval = exec_mmap(bprm->mm);
 	if (retval)
-		goto out;
+		goto out_unlock;
 
 	bprm->mm = NULL;		/* We're using it now */
 
@@ -1263,6 +1267,8 @@ int flush_old_exec(struct linux_binprm * bprm)
 
 	return 0;
 
+out_unlock:
+	mutex_unlock(&current->signal->cred_guard_light);
 out:
 	return retval;
 }
@@ -1386,6 +1392,7 @@ void install_exec_creds(struct linux_binprm *bprm)
 	 * credentials; any time after this it may be unlocked.
 	 */
 	security_bprm_committed_creds(bprm);
+	mutex_unlock(&current->signal->cred_guard_light);
 	mutex_unlock(&current->signal->cred_guard_mutex);
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL(install_exec_creds);
@@ -1753,6 +1760,12 @@ static int do_execveat_common(int fd, struct filename *filename,
 	return retval;
 
 out:
+	if (!bprm->mm && bprm->cred) {
+		/* failure after flush_old_exec(), but before
+		 * install_exec_creds()
+		 */
+		mutex_unlock(&current->signal->cred_guard_light);
+	}
 	if (bprm->mm) {
 		acct_arg_size(bprm, 0);
 		mmput(bprm->mm);
diff --git a/include/linux/init_task.h b/include/linux/init_task.h
index f8834f8..cd9faa0 100644
--- a/include/linux/init_task.h
+++ b/include/linux/init_task.h
@@ -58,6 +58,7 @@ extern struct fs_struct init_fs;
 	INIT_PREV_CPUTIME(sig)						\
 	.cred_guard_mutex =						\
 		 __MUTEX_INITIALIZER(sig.cred_guard_mutex),		\
+	.cred_guard_light = __MUTEX_INITIALIZER(sig.cred_guard_light)	\
 }
 
 extern struct nsproxy init_nsproxy;
diff --git a/include/linux/sched.h b/include/linux/sched.h
index 62c68e5..2a1df2f 100644
--- a/include/linux/sched.h
+++ b/include/linux/sched.h
@@ -808,6 +808,16 @@ struct signal_struct {
 	struct mutex cred_guard_mutex;	/* guard against foreign influences on
 					 * credential calculations
 					 * (notably. ptrace) */
+	/*
+	 * Lightweight version of cred_guard_mutex; used to prevent race
+	 * conditions where a user can gain information about the post-execve
+	 * state of a task to which access should only be granted pre-execve.
+	 * Hold this mutex while performing remote task inspection associated
+	 * with a security check.
+	 * This mutex MUST NOT be used in cases where anything changes about
+	 * the security properties of a running execve().
+	 */
+	struct mutex cred_guard_light;
 };
 
 /*
diff --git a/kernel/fork.c b/kernel/fork.c
index beb3172..2d46f3a 100644
--- a/kernel/fork.c
+++ b/kernel/fork.c
@@ -1215,6 +1215,7 @@ static int copy_signal(unsigned long clone_flags, struct task_struct *tsk)
 				   current->signal->is_child_subreaper;
 
 	mutex_init(&sig->cred_guard_mutex);
+	mutex_init(&sig->cred_guard_light);
 
 	return 0;
 }
diff --git a/kernel/ptrace.c b/kernel/ptrace.c
index 1d3b766..b5120ec 100644
--- a/kernel/ptrace.c
+++ b/kernel/ptrace.c
@@ -283,6 +283,16 @@ ok:
 	return security_ptrace_access_check(task, mode);
 }
 
+/*
+ * NOTE: When you call this function, you need to ensure that the target task
+ * can't acquire (via setuid execve) credentials between the ptrace access
+ * check and the privileged access. The recommended way to do this is to hold
+ * one of task->signal->{cred_guard_mutex,cred_guard_light} while calling this
+ * function and performing the requested access.
+ *
+ * This function may only be used if access is requested in the name of
+ * current_cred().
+ */
 bool ptrace_may_access(struct task_struct *task, unsigned int mode)
 {
 	int err;
-- 
2.1.4