Re: [PATCH v3 3/3] namei: aggressively check for nd->root escape on ".." resolution

On Tue, Oct 9, 2018 at 9:03 AM Aleksa Sarai [off-list ref] wrote:

This patch allows for AT_BENEATH and AT_THIS_ROOT to safely permit ".."
resolution (in the case of AT_BENEATH the resolution will still fail if
".." resolution would resolve a path outside of the root -- while
AT_THIS_ROOT will chroot(2)-style scope it). "proclink" jumps are still
disallowed entirely because now they could result in inconsistent
behaviour if resolution encounters a subsequent "..".

The need for this patch is explained by observing there is a fairly
easy-to-exploit race condition with chroot(2) (and thus by extension
AT_THIS_ROOT and AT_BENEATH) where a rename(2) of a path can be used to
"skip over" nd->root and thus escape to the filesystem above nd->root.

  thread1 [attacker]:
    for (;;)
      renameat2(AT_FDCWD, "/a/b/c", AT_FDCWD, "/a/d", RENAME_EXCHANGE);
  thread2 [victim]:
    for (;;)
      openat(dirb, "b/c/../../etc/shadow", O_THISROOT);

With fairly significant regularity, thread2 will resolve to
"/etc/shadow" rather than "/a/b/etc/shadow". There is also a similar
(though somewhat more privileged) attack using MS_MOVE.

With this patch, such cases will be detected *during* ".." resolution
(which is the weak point of chroot(2) -- since walking *into* a
subdirectory tautologically cannot result in you walking *outside*
nd->root -- except through a bind-mount or "proclink"). By detecting
this at ".." resolution (rather than checking only at the end of the
entire resolution) we can both correct escapes by jumping back to the
root (in the case of AT_THIS_ROOT), as well as avoid revealing to
attackers the structure of the filesystem outside of the root (through
timing attacks for instance).

In order to avoid a quadratic lookup with each ".." entry, we only
activate the slow path if a write through &rename_lock or &mount_lock
have occurred during path resolution (&rename_lock and &mount_lock are
re-taken to further optimise the lookup). Since the primary attack being
protected against is MS_MOVE or rename(2), not doing additional checks
unless a mount or rename have occurred avoids making the common case
slow.

The use of __d_path here might seem suspect, but on further inspection
of the most important race (a path was *inside* the root but is now
*outside*), there appears to be no attack potential. If __d_path occurs
before the rename, then the path will be resolved but since the path was
originally inside the root there is no escape. Subsequent ".." jumps are
guaranteed to check __d_path reachable (by construction, &rename_lock or
&mount_lock must have been taken after __d_path returned),

"after"? Don't you mean "before"? Otherwise I don't understand what
you're saying here.

[...]

+static inline int nd_alloc_dpathbuf(struct nameidata *nd)
+{
+       if (unlikely(!nd->dpathbuf)) {
+               if (nd->flags & LOOKUP_RCU) {
+                       nd->dpathbuf = kmalloc(PATH_MAX, GFP_ATOMIC);
+                       if (unlikely(!nd->dpathbuf))
+                               return -ECHILD;
+               } else {
+                       nd->dpathbuf = kmalloc(PATH_MAX, GFP_KERNEL);
+                       if (unlikely(!nd->dpathbuf))
+                               return -ENOMEM;
+               }
+       }
+       return 0;
+}

Note that a fixed-size path buffer means that if the path is very
long, e.g. because you followed long symlinks on the way down, this
can cause lookup failures.

I find the semantics of this check odd - especially in the
LOOKUP_BENEATH case, but also in the LOOKUP_CHROOT case. Wouldn't it
make more sense to just throw an error here? Making /.. go back to the
root is one thing, but making ".." from anything that has escaped from
the root go back to the root seems less logical to me.

Imagine, for example:

Thread A (a webserver or whatever) looks up
"example.org/images/foo/../bar.png" under "/var/www" with
LOOKUP_BENEATH.
Thread B concurrently moves "/var/www/example.org/images" to
"/var/backup/example.org/images".
Now thread A can accidentally resolve its path to "/var/www/bar.png"
if the race happens the wrong way?

+                       if (unlikely(IS_ERR(pathptr)))
+                               return PTR_ERR(pathptr);
+               }
        }
        return 0;
 }