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diff --git a/Documentation/userspace-api/mseal.rst b/Documentation/userspace-api/mseal.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..4132eec995a3 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/userspace-api/mseal.rst @@ -0,0 +1,199 @@ +.. 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]. + +User API +======== +mseal() +----------- +The mseal() syscall has the following 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. + +- 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 max + number of supported VMAs. In those cases, partial updates to the given + memory range could happen. However, those cases should be rare. + +**Blocked operations after sealing**: + Unmapping, moving to another location, and shrinking the size, + via munmap() and mremap(), can leave an empty space, therefore + can be replaced with a VMA with a new set of attributes. + + Moving or expanding a different VMA into the current location, + via mremap(). + + Modifying a VMA via mmap(MAP_FIXED). + + Size expansion, via mremap(), does not appear to pose any + specific risks to sealed VMAs. It is included anyway because + the use case is unclear. In any case, users can rely on + merging to expand a sealed VMA. + + mprotect() and pkey_mprotect(). + + Some destructive madvice() behaviors (e.g. MADV_DONTNEED) + for anonymous memory, when users don't have write permission to the + memory. Those behaviors can alter region contents by discarding pages, + effectively a memset(0) for anonymous memory. + + Kernel will return -EPERM for blocked operations. + + For blocked operations, one can expect the given address is unmodified, + i.e. no partial update. Note, this is different from existing mm + system call behaviors, where partial updates are made till an error is + found and returned to userspace. To give an example: + + Assume following code sequence: + + - ptr = mmap(null, 8192, PROT_NONE); + - munmap(ptr + 4096, 4096); + - ret1 = mprotect(ptr, 8192, PROT_READ); + - mseal(ptr, 4096); + - ret2 = mprotect(ptr, 8192, PROT_NONE); + + ret1 will be -ENOMEM, the page from ptr is updated to PROT_READ. + + ret2 will be -EPERM, the page remains to be PROT_READ. + +**Note**: + +- mseal() only works on 64-bit CPUs, not 32-bit CPU. + +- users can call mseal() multiple times, mseal() on an already sealed memory + is a no-action (not error). + +- munseal() is not supported. + +Use cases: +========== +- glibc: + The dynamic linker, during loading ELF executables, can apply sealing to + non-writable memory segments. + +- Chrome browser: protect some security sensitive data-structures. + +Notes on which memory to seal: +============================== + +It might be important to note that sealing changes the lifetime of a mapping, +i.e. the sealed mapping won’t be unmapped till the process terminates or the +exec system call is invoked. 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. + +For example: + +- aio/shm + + aio/shm can call mmap()/munmap() on behalf of userspace, e.g. ksys_shmdt() in + shm.c. The lifetime 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. + +- Brk (heap) + + Currently, userspace applications can seal parts of the heap by calling + malloc() and mseal(). + let's assume following calls from user space: + + - ptr = malloc(size); + - mprotect(ptr, size, RO); + - mseal(ptr, size); + - free(ptr); + + Technically, before mseal() is added, the user can change the protection of + the heap by calling mprotect(RO). As long as the user changes the protection + back to RW before free(), the memory range can be reused. + + Adding mseal() into the picture, however, the heap is then sealed partially, + the user can still free it, but the memory remains to be RO. If the address + is re-used by the heap manager for another malloc, the process might crash + soon after. Therefore, it is important not to apply sealing to any memory + that might get recycled. + + Furthermore, even if the application never calls the free() for the ptr, + the heap manager may invoke the brk system call to shrink the size of the + heap. In the kernel, the brk-shrink will call munmap(). Consequently, + depending on the location of the ptr, the outcome of brk-shrink is + nondeterministic. + + +Additional notes: +================= +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. Those cases are not covered +by mseal(). If applications want to block such cases, sandbox tools (such as +seccomp, LSM, etc) might be considered. + +Those cases are: + +- Write to read-only memory through /proc/self/mem interface. +- 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 |