Re: [PATCH v3 17/70] nstree: add listns()
From: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
Date: 2025-10-28 15:20:12
Also in:
bpf, cgroups, linux-fsdevel, lkml
Subsystem:
the rest · Maintainer:
Linus Torvalds
On Fri, Oct 24, 2025 at 04:06:57PM +0200, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
On Fri, Oct 24, 2025, at 12:52, Christian Brauner wrote:quoted
Add a new listns() system call that allows userspace to iterate through namespaces in the system. This provides a programmatic interface to discover and inspect namespaces, enhancing existing namespace apis.I double-checked that the ABI is well-formed and works the same way on all supported architectures, though I did not check the functional aspects. Acked-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de> One small thing I noticed:quoted
+SYSCALL_DEFINE4(listns, const struct ns_id_req __user *, req, + u64 __user *, ns_ids, size_t, nr_ns_ids, unsigned int, flags) +{ + struct klistns klns __free(klistns_free) = {}; + const size_t maxcount = 1000000; + struct ns_id_req kreq; + ssize_t ret; + + if (flags) + return -EINVAL; + + if (unlikely(nr_ns_ids > maxcount)) + return -EOVERFLOW; + + if (!access_ok(ns_ids, nr_ns_ids * sizeof(*ns_ids))) + return -EFAULT;I'm a bit worried about hardcoding the maxcount value here, which seems to limit both the size of the allocation and prevent overflowing the multiplication of the access_ok() argument, though that isn't completely clear from the implementation. Allowing 8MB of vmalloc space to be filled can be bad on 32-bit systems that may only have 100MB in total. The access_ok() check looks like it tries to provide an early-fail error return but should not actually be needed since there is a single copy_to_user() in the end, and that is more likely to fail for unmapped memory than an access_ok() failure. Would it make sense to just drop the kvmalloc() completely and instead put_user() the output values individually? That way you can avoid both a hardwired limit and a potential DoS from vmalloc exhaustion.
Initially this wasn't possible because we walked all of this completely with only rcu protection. But now that we always have to take a passive reference its possible to do what you suggest. This would mean ping-ponging the rcu_read_lock()/rcu_read_unlock() but that's probably fine. How do you feel about the following?:
diff --git a/kernel/nstree.c b/kernel/nstree.c
index 1455573e774e..e4c8508e97c7 100644
--- a/kernel/nstree.c
+++ b/kernel/nstree.c@@ -382,7 +382,7 @@ u64 __ns_tree_gen_id(struct ns_common *ns, u64 id) } struct klistns { - u64 *kns_ids; + u64 __user *uns_ids; u32 nr_ns_ids; u64 last_ns_id; u64 user_ns_id;
@@ -395,9 +395,8 @@ static void __free_klistns_free(const struct klistns *kls) { if (kls->user_ns_id != LISTNS_CURRENT_USER) put_user_ns(kls->user_ns); - if (kls->first_ns) + if (kls->first_ns && kls->first_ns->ops) kls->first_ns->ops->put(kls->first_ns); - kvfree(kls->kns_ids); } #define NS_ALL (PID_NS | USER_NS | MNT_NS | UTS_NS | IPC_NS | NET_NS | CGROUP_NS | TIME_NS)
@@ -429,18 +428,13 @@ static int copy_ns_id_req(const struct ns_id_req __user *req, } static inline int prepare_klistns(struct klistns *kls, struct ns_id_req *kreq, - size_t nr_ns_ids) + u64 __user *ns_ids, size_t nr_ns_ids) { kls->last_ns_id = kreq->ns_id; kls->user_ns_id = kreq->user_ns_id; - kls->nr_ns_ids = nr_ns_ids; - kls->ns_type = kreq->ns_type; - - kls->kns_ids = kvmalloc_array(nr_ns_ids, sizeof(*kls->kns_ids), - GFP_KERNEL_ACCOUNT); - if (!kls->kns_ids) - return -ENOMEM; - + kls->nr_ns_ids = nr_ns_ids; + kls->ns_type = kreq->ns_type; + kls->uns_ids = ns_ids; return 0; }
@@ -459,8 +453,9 @@ static struct ns_common *lookup_ns_owner_at(u64 ns_id, struct ns_common *owner) node = owner->ns_owner_tree.rb_node; while (node) { - struct ns_common *ns = node_to_ns_owner(node); + struct ns_common *ns; + ns = node_to_ns_owner(node); if (ns_id <= ns->ns_id) { ret = ns; if (ns_id == ns->ns_id)
@@ -494,7 +489,7 @@ static struct ns_common *lookup_ns_id(u64 mnt_ns_id, int ns_type) static ssize_t do_listns_userns(struct klistns *kls) { - u64 *ns_ids = kls->kns_ids; + u64 __user *ns_ids = kls->uns_ids; size_t nr_ns_ids = kls->nr_ns_ids; struct ns_common *ns = NULL, *first_ns = NULL; const struct list_head *head;
@@ -525,7 +520,9 @@ static ssize_t do_listns_userns(struct klistns *kls) ret = 0; head = &to_ns_common(kls->user_ns)->ns_owner; userns_capable = ns_capable_noaudit(kls->user_ns, CAP_SYS_ADMIN); - guard(rcu)(); + + rcu_read_lock(); + if (!first_ns) first_ns = list_entry_rcu(head->next, typeof(*ns), ns_owner_entry); for (ns = first_ns; &ns->ns_owner_entry != head && nr_ns_ids;
@@ -534,19 +531,28 @@ static ssize_t do_listns_userns(struct klistns *kls) continue; if (!ns_get_unless_inactive(ns)) continue; + + rcu_read_unlock(); + if (userns_capable || is_current_namespace(ns) || ((ns->ns_type == CLONE_NEWUSER) && ns_capable_noaudit(to_user_ns(ns), CAP_SYS_ADMIN))) { - *ns_ids = ns->ns_id; - ns_ids++; + if (put_user(ns->ns_id, ns_ids + ret)) + return -EINVAL; nr_ns_ids--; ret++; } + if (need_resched()) - cond_resched_rcu(); + cond_resched(); + + rcu_read_lock(); + /* doesn't sleep */ - ns->ops->put(ns); + if (ns->ops) + ns->ops->put(ns); } + rcu_read_unlock(); return ret; }
@@ -626,7 +632,7 @@ static inline bool ns_common_is_head(struct ns_common *ns, static ssize_t do_listns(struct klistns *kls) { - u64 *ns_ids = kls->kns_ids; + u64 __user *ns_ids = kls->uns_ids; size_t nr_ns_ids = kls->nr_ns_ids; struct ns_common *ns, *first_ns = NULL; struct ns_tree *ns_tree = NULL;
@@ -659,7 +665,8 @@ static ssize_t do_listns(struct klistns *kls) else head = &ns_unified_list; - guard(rcu)(); + rcu_read_lock(); + if (!first_ns) first_ns = first_ns_common(head, ns_tree);
@@ -669,6 +676,9 @@ static ssize_t do_listns(struct klistns *kls) continue; if (!ns_get_unless_inactive(ns)) continue; + + rcu_read_unlock(); + /* Check permissions */ if (!ns->ops) user_ns = NULL;
@@ -679,16 +689,22 @@ static ssize_t do_listns(struct klistns *kls) if (ns_capable_noaudit(user_ns, CAP_SYS_ADMIN) || is_current_namespace(ns) || ((ns->ns_type == CLONE_NEWUSER) && ns_capable_noaudit(to_user_ns(ns), CAP_SYS_ADMIN))) { - *ns_ids++ = ns->ns_id; + if (put_user(ns->ns_id, ns_ids + ret)) + return -EINVAL; nr_ns_ids--; ret++; } if (need_resched()) - cond_resched_rcu(); + cond_resched(); + + rcu_read_lock(); + /* doesn't sleep */ - ns->ops->put(ns); + if (ns->ops) + ns->ops->put(ns); } + rcu_read_unlock(); return ret; }
@@ -713,19 +729,12 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE4(listns, const struct ns_id_req __user *, req, if (ret) return ret; - ret = prepare_klistns(&klns, &kreq, nr_ns_ids); + ret = prepare_klistns(&klns, &kreq, ns_ids, nr_ns_ids); if (ret) return ret; if (kreq.user_ns_id) - ret = do_listns_userns(&klns); - else - ret = do_listns(&klns); - if (ret <= 0) - return ret; + return do_listns_userns(&klns); - if (copy_to_user(ns_ids, klns.kns_ids, ret * sizeof(*ns_ids))) - return -EFAULT; - - return ret; + return do_listns(&klns); }