bpf: improve dead code sanitizing

Given we recently had c131187db2d3 ("bpf: fix branch pruning
logic") and 95a762e2c8c9 ("bpf: fix incorrect sign extension in
check_alu_op()") in particular where before verifier skipped
verification of the wrongly assumed dead branch, we should not
just replace the dead code parts with nops (mov r0,r0). If there
is a bug such as fixed in 95a762e2c8c9 in future again, where
runtime could execute those insns, then one of the potential
issues with the current setting would be that given the nops
would be at the end of the program, we could execute out of
bounds at some point.

The best in such case would be to just exit the BPF program
altogether and return an exception code. However, given this
would require two instructions, and such a dead code gap could
just be a single insn long, we would need to place 'r0 = X; ret'
snippet at the very end after the user program or at the start
before the program (where we'd skip that region on prog entry),
and then place unconditional ja's into the dead code gap.

While more complex but possible, there's still another block
in the road that currently prevents from this, namely BPF to
BPF calls. The issue here is that such exception could be
returned from a callee, but the caller would not know that
it's an exception that needs to be propagated further down.
Alternative that has little complexity is to just use a ja-1
code for now which will trap the execution here instead of
silently doing bad things if we ever get there due to bugs.

Signed-off-by: Daniel Borkmann <daniel@iogearbox.net>
Acked-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>

1 files changed, 12 insertions, 5 deletions

diff --git a/kernel/bpf/verifier.c b/kernel/bpf/verifier.c
index dfb138b46488..8365259a7c5a 100644
--- a/kernel/bpf/verifier.c
+++ b/kernel/bpf/verifier.c
@@ -5064,14 +5064,21 @@ static struct bpf_prog *bpf_patch_insn_data(struct bpf_verifier_env *env, u32 of
 	return new_prog;
 }
 
-/* The verifier does more data flow analysis than llvm and will not explore
- * branches that are dead at run time. Malicious programs can have dead code
- * too. Therefore replace all dead at-run-time code with nops.
+/* The verifier does more data flow analysis than llvm and will not
+ * explore branches that are dead at run time. Malicious programs can
+ * have dead code too. Therefore replace all dead at-run-time code
+ * with 'ja -1'.
+ *
+ * Just nops are not optimal, e.g. if they would sit at the end of the
+ * program and through another bug we would manage to jump there, then
+ * we'd execute beyond program memory otherwise. Returning exception
+ * code also wouldn't work since we can have subprogs where the dead
+ * code could be located.
  */
 static void sanitize_dead_code(struct bpf_verifier_env *env)
 {
 	struct bpf_insn_aux_data *aux_data = env->insn_aux_data;
-	struct bpf_insn nop = BPF_MOV64_REG(BPF_REG_0, BPF_REG_0);
+	struct bpf_insn trap = BPF_JMP_IMM(BPF_JA, 0, 0, -1);
 	struct bpf_insn *insn = env->prog->insnsi;
 	const int insn_cnt = env->prog->len;
 	int i;
@@ -5079,7 +5086,7 @@ static void sanitize_dead_code(struct bpf_verifier_env *env)
 	for (i = 0; i < insn_cnt; i++) {
 		if (aux_data[i].seen)
 			continue;
-		memcpy(insn + i, &nop, sizeof(nop));
+		memcpy(insn + i, &trap, sizeof(trap));
 	}
 }