Thread (31 messages) flat view 31 messages, 4 authors, 2019-01-16

Re: KASAN: use-after-free Read in task_is_descendant

From: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Date: 2018-10-25 11:14:03
Also in: lkml

On 10/25, Tetsuo Handa wrote:
Oleg Nesterov wrote:
quoted
On 10/22, Tetsuo Handa wrote:
quoted
quoted
And again, I do not know how/if yama ensures that child is rcu-protected, perhaps
task_is_descendant() needs to check pid_alive(child) right after rcu_read_lock() ?
Since the caller (ptrace() path) called get_task_struct(child), child itself can't be
released. Do we still need pid_alive(child) ?
get_task_struct(child) can only ensure that this task_struct can't be freed.
The report says that it is a use-after-free read at

  walker = rcu_dereference(walker->real_parent);

which means that walker was already released.
quite possibly I missed something, but I am not sure I understand your concerns...

So again, suppose that "child" is already dead. Its task_struct can't be freed,
but child->real_parent can point to the already freed memory.

This means that the 1st walker = rcu_dereference(walker->real_parent) is fine,
this simply reads the child->real_parent pointer, but on the second iteration

	walker = rcu_dereference(walker->real_parent);

reads the alredy freed memory.
I wonder whether pid_alive() test helps.

We can get

[   40.620318] parent or walker is dead.
[   40.624146] tracee is dead.

messages using below patch and reproducer.
again, I do not understand, this all looks correct...
quoted hunk ↗ jump to hunk
----------
diff --git a/kernel/ptrace.c b/kernel/ptrace.c
index 99cfddd..0d9d786 100644
--- a/kernel/ptrace.c
+++ b/kernel/ptrace.c
@@ -385,6 +385,7 @@ static int ptrace_attach(struct task_struct *task, long request,
 	if (mutex_lock_interruptible(&task->signal->cred_guard_mutex))
 		goto out;

+	schedule_timeout_killable(HZ);
 	task_lock(task);
 	retval = __ptrace_may_access(task, PTRACE_MODE_ATTACH_REALCREDS);
 	task_unlock(task);
diff --git a/security/yama/yama_lsm.c b/security/yama/yama_lsm.c
index ffda91a..a231ec6 100644
--- a/security/yama/yama_lsm.c
+++ b/security/yama/yama_lsm.c
@@ -283,6 +283,11 @@ static int task_is_descendant(struct task_struct *parent,
 		return 0;

 	rcu_read_lock();
+	if (!pid_alive(parent) || !pid_alive(walker)) {
+		rcu_read_unlock();
+		printk("parent or walker is dead.\n");
This is what we need to do, except I think we should change yama_ptrace_access_check().
And iiuc parent == current, pid_alive(parent) looks unnecessary. Although we need to
check ptracer_exception_found(), may be it needs some changes too.

And yes, task_is_descendant() can hit the dead child, if nothing else it can
be killed. This can explain the kasan report.
quoted hunk ↗ jump to hunk
@@ -315,6 +320,10 @@ static int ptracer_exception_found(struct task_struct *tracer,
 	bool found = false;

 	rcu_read_lock();
+	if (!pid_alive(tracee)) {
+		printk("tracee is dead.\n");
+		goto unlock;
Sure, this is possible too.
But since "child" has at least one reference, reading "child->real_parent" should
be safe. Therefore, I think that bailing out due to pid_is_alive(child) == false
(like above patch does) cannot avoid this problem...
Why?

OK. Lets ignore ptracer_exception_found() for the moment. Why do you think the
patch below can't help?

Oleg.
--- x/security/yama/yama_lsm.c
+++ x/security/yama/yama_lsm.c
@@ -368,7 +368,8 @@ static int yama_ptrace_access_check(stru
 			break;
 		case YAMA_SCOPE_RELATIONAL:
 			rcu_read_lock();
-			if (!task_is_descendant(current, child) &&
+			if (!pid_alive(child) ||
+			    !task_is_descendant(current, child) &&
 			    !ptracer_exception_found(current, child) &&
 			    !ns_capable(__task_cred(child)->user_ns, CAP_SYS_PTRACE))
 				rc = -EPERM;
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