summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorRyan Mallon <rmallon@gmail.com>2013-11-12 15:08:51 -0800
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2013-11-13 12:09:14 +0900
commit312b4e226951f707e120b95b118cbc14f3d162b2 (patch)
treef4e9daef9fe4047ac43e5e3972df4ed3a696f589 /Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt
parent27083baca51358fe0fba8cf40b7df9bb696c931a (diff)
vsprintf: check real user/group id for %pK
Some setuid binaries will allow reading of files which have read permission by the real user id. This is problematic with files which use %pK because the file access permission is checked at open() time, but the kptr_restrict setting is checked at read() time. If a setuid binary opens a %pK file as an unprivileged user, and then elevates permissions before reading the file, then kernel pointer values may be leaked. This happens for example with the setuid pppd application on Ubuntu 12.04: $ head -1 /proc/kallsyms 00000000 T startup_32 $ pppd file /proc/kallsyms pppd: In file /proc/kallsyms: unrecognized option 'c1000000' This will only leak the pointer value from the first line, but other setuid binaries may leak more information. Fix this by adding a check that in addition to the current process having CAP_SYSLOG, that effective user and group ids are equal to the real ids. If a setuid binary reads the contents of a file which uses %pK then the pointer values will be printed as NULL if the real user is unprivileged. Update the sysctl documentation to reflect the changes, and also correct the documentation to state the kptr_restrict=0 is the default. This is a only temporary solution to the issue. The correct solution is to do the permission check at open() time on files, and to replace %pK with a function which checks the open() time permission. %pK uses in printk should be removed since no sane permission check can be done, and instead protected by using dmesg_restrict. Signed-off-by: Ryan Mallon <rmallon@gmail.com> Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org> Cc: Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk> Cc: Joe Perches <joe@perches.com> Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com> Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt25
1 files changed, 18 insertions, 7 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt
index 4273b2d71a27..26b7ee491df8 100644
--- a/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt
+++ b/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt
@@ -290,13 +290,24 @@ Default value is "/sbin/hotplug".
kptr_restrict:
This toggle indicates whether restrictions are placed on
-exposing kernel addresses via /proc and other interfaces. When
-kptr_restrict is set to (0), there are no restrictions. When
-kptr_restrict is set to (1), the default, kernel pointers
-printed using the %pK format specifier will be replaced with 0's
-unless the user has CAP_SYSLOG. When kptr_restrict is set to
-(2), kernel pointers printed using %pK will be replaced with 0's
-regardless of privileges.
+exposing kernel addresses via /proc and other interfaces.
+
+When kptr_restrict is set to (0), the default, there are no restrictions.
+
+When kptr_restrict is set to (1), kernel pointers printed using the %pK
+format specifier will be replaced with 0's unless the user has CAP_SYSLOG
+and effective user and group ids are equal to the real ids. This is
+because %pK checks are done at read() time rather than open() time, so
+if permissions are elevated between the open() and the read() (e.g via
+a setuid binary) then %pK will not leak kernel pointers to unprivileged
+users. Note, this is a temporary solution only. The correct long-term
+solution is to do the permission checks at open() time. Consider removing
+world read permissions from files that use %pK, and using dmesg_restrict
+to protect against uses of %pK in dmesg(8) if leaking kernel pointer
+values to unprivileged users is a concern.
+
+When kptr_restrict is set to (2), kernel pointers printed using
+%pK will be replaced with 0's regardless of privileges.
==============================================================