Previously: v4.4. Some things I found interesting in the Linux kernel v4.5:
CONFIG_IO_STRICT_DEVMEM
The CONFIG_STRICT_DEVMEM setting that has existed for a long time already protects system RAM from being accessible through the /dev/mem device node to root in user-space. Dan Williams added CONFIG_IO_STRICT_DEVMEM to extend this so that if a kernel driver has reserved a device memory region for use, it will become unavailable to /dev/mem also. The reservation in the kernel was to keep other kernel things from using the memory, so this is just common sense to make sure user-space can’t stomp on it either. Everyone should have this enabled. (And if you have a system where you discover you need IO memory access from userspace, you can boot with “iomem=relaxed” to disable this at runtime.)
If you’re looking to create a very bright line between user-space having access to device memory, it’s worth noting that if a device driver is a module, a malicious root user can just unload the module (freeing the kernel memory reservation), fiddle with the device memory, and then reload the driver module. So either just leave out /dev/mem entirely (not currently possible with upstream), build a monolithic kernel (no modules), or otherwise block (un)loading of modules (/proc/sys/kernel/modules_disabled).
ptrace fsuid checking
Jann Horn fixed some corner-cases in how ptrace access checks were handled on special files in /proc. For example, prior to this fix, if a setuid process temporarily dropped privileges to perform actions as a regular user, the ptrace checks would not notice the reduced privilege, possibly allowing a regular user to trick a privileged process into disclosing things out of /proc (ASLR offsets, restricted directories, etc) that they normally would be restricted from seeing.
ASLR entropy sysctl
Daniel Cashman standardized the way architectures declare their maximum user-space ASLR entropy (CONFIG_ARCH_MMAP_RND_BITS_MAX) and then created a sysctl (/proc/sys/vm/mmap_rnd_bits) so that system owners could crank up entropy. For example, the default entropy on 32-bit ARM was 8 bits, but the maximum could be as much as 16. If your 64-bit kernel is built with CONFIG_COMPAT, there’s a compat version of the sysctl as well, for controlling the ASLR entropy of 32-bit processes: /proc/sys/vm/mmap_rnd_compat_bits.
Here’s how to crank your entropy to the max, without regard to what architecture you’re on:
for i in "" "compat_"; do f=/proc/sys/vm/mmap_rnd_${i}bits; n=$(cat $f); while echo $n > $f ; do n=$(( n + 1 )); done; done
strict sysctl writes
Two years ago I added a sysctl for treating sysctl writes more like regular files (i.e. what’s written first is what appears at the start), rather than like a ring-buffer (what’s written last is what appears first). At the time it wasn’t clear what might break if this was enabled, so a WARN was added to the kernel. Since only one such string showed up in searches over the last two years, the strict writing mode was made the default. The setting remains available as /proc/sys/kernel/sysctl_writes_strict.
seccomp UM support
Mickaël Salaün added seccomp support (and selftests) for user-mode Linux. Moar architectures!
seccomp NNP vs TSYNC fix
Jann Horn noticed and fixed a problem where if a seccomp filter was already in place on a process (after being installed by a privileged process like systemd, a container launcher, etc) then the setting of the “no new privs” flag could be bypassed when adding filters with the SECCOMP_FILTER_FLAG_TSYNC flag set. Bypassing NNP meant it might be possible to trick a buggy setuid program into doing things as root after a seccomp filter forced a privilege drop to fail (generally referred to as the “sendmail setuid flaw”). With NNP set, a setuid program can’t be run in the first place.
That’s it! Next I’ll cover v4.6…
Edit: Added notes about “iomem=…”
© 2016, Kees Cook. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.