Hi Simon,

On Mon, 2021-08-23 at 12:02 +0000, THOBY Simon wrote:

Hi Mimi,

On 8/23/21 1:57 PM, Mimi Zohar wrote:

quoted

On Mon, 2021-08-23 at 08:14 +0000, THOBY Simon wrote:

quoted

Hi Liqiong,

On 8/23/21 10:06 AM, liqiong wrote:

quoted

Hi Simon :

Using a temporary ima_rules variable is not working for "ima_policy_next". 

 void *ima_policy_next(struct seq_file *m, void *v, loff_t *pos)
 {
 	struct ima_rule_entry *entry = v;
-
+	struct list_head *ima_rules_tmp = rcu_dereference(ima_rules);
 	rcu_read_lock();
 	entry = list_entry_rcu(entry->list.next, struct ima_rule_entry, list);
 	rcu_read_unlock();
 	(*pos)++;
 
-	return (&entry->list == ima_rules) ? NULL : entry;
+	return (&entry->list == ima_rules_tmp) ? NULL : entry;
 }

It seems no way to fix "ima_rules" change within this function, it will alway
return a entry if "ima_rules" being changed.

- I think rcu_dereference() should be called inside the RCU read lock
- Maybe we could cheat with:
	return (&entry->list == &ima_policy_rules || &entry->list == &ima_default_rules) ? NULL : entry;
  as that's the only two rulesets IMA ever use?
  Admittedly, this is not as clean as previously, but it should work too.

The way I see it, the semaphore solution would not work here either,
as ima_policy_next() is called repeatedly as a seq_file
(it is set up in ima_fs.c) and we can't control the locking there:
we cannot lock across the seq_read() call (that cure could end up be
worse than the disease, deadlock-wise), so I fear we cannot protect
against a list update while a user is iterating with a lock.

So in both cases a cheat like "&entry->list == &ima_policy_rules || &entry->list == &ima_default_rules"
maybe need to be considered.

What do you think?

Is this an overall suggestion or limited to just ima_policy_next()?

I was thinking only of ima_policy_next(), I don't think (from what I could see in a short glance)
that other functions need such a treatment. The ima_rules_tmp dance is probably safe for the
other uses of ima_rules.

Thanks, just making sure it is limited to here.

Mimi