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diff --git a/Documentation/userspace-api/mseal.rst b/Documentation/userspace-api/mseal.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..ea9b11a0bd89 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/userspace-api/mseal.rst @@ -0,0 +1,209 @@ +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 + +===================== +Introduction of mseal +===================== + +:Author: Jeff Xu <jeffxu@chromium.org> + +Modern CPUs support memory permissions such as RW and NX bits. The memory +permission feature improves security stance on memory corruption bugs, i.e. +the attacker can’t just write to arbitrary memory and point the code to it, +the memory has to be marked with X bit, or else an exception will happen. + +Memory sealing additionally protects the mapping itself against +modifications. This is useful to mitigate memory corruption issues where a +corrupted pointer is passed to a memory management system. For example, +such an attacker primitive can break control-flow integrity guarantees +since read-only memory that is supposed to be trusted can become writable +or .text pages can get remapped. Memory sealing can automatically be +applied by the runtime loader to seal .text and .rodata pages and +applications can additionally seal security critical data at runtime. + +A similar feature already exists in the XNU kernel with the +VM_FLAGS_PERMANENT flag [1] and on OpenBSD with the mimmutable syscall [2]. + +SYSCALL +======= +mseal syscall signature +----------------------- + ``int mseal(void *addr, size_t len, unsigned long flags)`` + + **addr**/**len**: virtual memory address range. + The address range set by **addr**/**len** must meet: + - The start address must be in an allocated VMA. + - The start address must be page aligned. + - The end address (**addr** + **len**) must be in an allocated VMA. + - no gap (unallocated memory) between start and end address. + + The ``len`` will be paged aligned implicitly by the kernel. + + **flags**: reserved for future use. + + **Return values**: + - **0**: Success. + - **-EINVAL**: + * Invalid input ``flags``. + * The start address (``addr``) is not page aligned. + * Address range (``addr`` + ``len``) overflow. + - **-ENOMEM**: + * The start address (``addr``) is not allocated. + * The end address (``addr`` + ``len``) is not allocated. + * A gap (unallocated memory) between start and end address. + - **-EPERM**: + * sealing is supported only on 64-bit CPUs, 32-bit is not supported. + + **Note about error return**: + - For above error cases, users can expect the given memory range is + unmodified, i.e. no partial update. + - There might be other internal errors/cases not listed here, e.g. + error during merging/splitting VMAs, or the process reaching the maximum + number of supported VMAs. In those cases, partial updates to the given + memory range could happen. However, those cases should be rare. + + **Architecture support**: + mseal only works on 64-bit CPUs, not 32-bit CPUs. + + **Idempotent**: + users can call mseal multiple times. mseal on an already sealed memory + is a no-action (not error). + + **no munseal** + Once mapping is sealed, it can't be unsealed. The kernel should never + have munseal, this is consistent with other sealing feature, e.g. + F_SEAL_SEAL for file. + +Blocked mm syscall for sealed mapping +------------------------------------- + It might be important to note: **once the mapping is sealed, it will + stay in the process's memory until the process terminates**. + + Example:: + + *ptr = mmap(0, 4096, PROT_READ, MAP_ANONYMOUS | MAP_PRIVATE, 0, 0); + rc = mseal(ptr, 4096, 0); + /* munmap will fail */ + rc = munmap(ptr, 4096); + assert(rc < 0); + + Blocked mm syscall: + - munmap + - mmap + - mremap + - mprotect and pkey_mprotect + - some destructive madvise behaviors: MADV_DONTNEED, MADV_FREE, + MADV_DONTNEED_LOCKED, MADV_FREE, MADV_DONTFORK, MADV_WIPEONFORK + + The first set of syscalls to block is munmap, mremap, mmap. They can + either leave an empty space in the address space, therefore allowing + replacement with a new mapping with new set of attributes, or can + overwrite the existing mapping with another mapping. + + mprotect and pkey_mprotect are blocked because they changes the + protection bits (RWX) of the mapping. + + Certain destructive madvise behaviors, specifically MADV_DONTNEED, + MADV_FREE, MADV_DONTNEED_LOCKED, and MADV_WIPEONFORK, can introduce + risks when applied to anonymous memory by threads lacking write + permissions. Consequently, these operations are prohibited under such + conditions. The aforementioned behaviors have the potential to modify + region contents by discarding pages, effectively performing a memset(0) + operation on the anonymous memory. + + Kernel will return -EPERM for blocked syscalls. + + When blocked syscall return -EPERM due to sealing, the memory regions may + or may not be changed, depends on the syscall being blocked: + + - munmap: munmap is atomic. If one of VMAs in the given range is + sealed, none of VMAs are updated. + - mprotect, pkey_mprotect, madvise: partial update might happen, e.g. + when mprotect over multiple VMAs, mprotect might update the beginning + VMAs before reaching the sealed VMA and return -EPERM. + - mmap and mremap: undefined behavior. + +Use cases +========= +- glibc: + The dynamic linker, during loading ELF executables, can apply sealing to + mapping segments. + +- Chrome browser: protect some security sensitive data structures. + +- System mappings: + The system mappings are created by the kernel and includes vdso, vvar, + vvar_vclock, vectors (arm compat-mode), sigpage (arm compat-mode), uprobes. + + Those system mappings are readonly only or execute only, memory sealing can + protect them from ever changing to writable or unmmap/remapped as different + attributes. This is useful to mitigate memory corruption issues where a + corrupted pointer is passed to a memory management system. + + If supported by an architecture (CONFIG_ARCH_SUPPORTS_MSEAL_SYSTEM_MAPPINGS), + the CONFIG_MSEAL_SYSTEM_MAPPINGS seals all system mappings of this + architecture. + + The following architectures currently support this feature: x86-64, arm64, + loongarch and s390. + + WARNING: This feature breaks programs which rely on relocating + or unmapping system mappings. Known broken software at the time + of writing includes CHECKPOINT_RESTORE, UML, gVisor, rr. Therefore + this config can't be enabled universally. + +When not to use mseal +===================== +Applications can apply sealing to any virtual memory region from userspace, +but it is *crucial to thoroughly analyze the mapping's lifetime* prior to +apply the sealing. This is because the sealed mapping *won’t be unmapped* +until the process terminates or the exec system call is invoked. + +For example: + - aio/shm + aio/shm can call mmap and munmap on behalf of userspace, e.g. + ksys_shmdt() in shm.c. The lifetimes of those mapping are not tied to + the lifetime of the process. If those memories are sealed from userspace, + then munmap will fail, causing leaks in VMA address space during the + lifetime of the process. + + - ptr allocated by malloc (heap) + Don't use mseal on the memory ptr return from malloc(). + malloc() is implemented by allocator, e.g. by glibc. Heap manager might + allocate a ptr from brk or mapping created by mmap. + If an app calls mseal on a ptr returned from malloc(), this can affect + the heap manager's ability to manage the mappings; the outcome is + non-deterministic. + + Example:: + + ptr = malloc(size); + /* don't call mseal on ptr return from malloc. */ + mseal(ptr, size); + /* free will success, allocator can't shrink heap lower than ptr */ + free(ptr); + +mseal doesn't block +=================== +In a nutshell, mseal blocks certain mm syscall from modifying some of VMA's +attributes, such as protection bits (RWX). Sealed mappings doesn't mean the +memory is immutable. + +As Jann Horn pointed out in [3], there are still a few ways to write +to RO memory, which is, in a way, by design. And those could be blocked +by different security measures. + +Those cases are: + + - Write to read-only memory through /proc/self/mem interface (FOLL_FORCE). + - Write to read-only memory through ptrace (such as PTRACE_POKETEXT). + - userfaultfd. + +The idea that inspired this patch comes from Stephen Röttger’s work in V8 +CFI [4]. Chrome browser in ChromeOS will be the first user of this API. + +Reference +========= +- [1] https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu/blob/1031c584a5e37aff177559b9f69dbd3c8c3fd30a/osfmk/mach/vm_statistics.h#L274 +- [2] https://man.openbsd.org/mimmutable.2 +- [3] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAG48ez3ShUYey+ZAFsU2i1RpQn0a5eOs2hzQ426FkcgnfUGLvA@mail.gmail.com +- [4] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O2jwK4dxI3nRcOJuPYkonhTkNQfbmwdvxQMyXgeaRHo/edit#heading=h.bvaojj9fu6hc |