[RFC PATCH v2 1/5] mm: Introduce vm_ops->may_mprotect()

Sean Christopherson sean.j.christopherson at intel.com
Thu Jun 6 02:11:41 UTC 2019


SGX will use the may_mprotect() hook to prevent userspace from
circumventing various security checks, e.g. Linux Security Modules.
Naming it may_mprotect() instead of simply mprotect() is intended to
reflect the hook's purpose as a way to gate mprotect() as opposed to
a wholesale replacement.

Enclaves are built by copying data from normal memory into the Enclave
Page Cache (EPC).  Due to the nature of SGX, the EPC is represented by a
single file that must be MAP_SHARED, i.e. mprotect() only ever sees a
MAP_SHARED vm_file that references single file path.  Furthermore, all
enclaves will need read, write and execute pages in the EPC.

As a result, LSM policies cannot be meaningfully applied, e.g. an LSM
can deny access to the EPC as a whole, but can't deny PROT_EXEC on page
that originated in a non-EXECUTE file (which is long gone by the time
mprotect() is called).

By hooking mprotect(), SGX can make explicit LSM upcalls while an
enclave is being built, i.e. when the kernel has a handle to origin of
each enclave page, and enforce the result of the LSM policy whenever
userspace maps the enclave page in the future.

Alternatively, SGX could play games with MAY_{READ,WRITE,EXEC}, but
that approach is quite ugly, e.g. would require userspace to call an
SGX ioctl() prior to using mprotect() to extend a page's protections.

Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <sean.j.christopherson at intel.com>
---
 include/linux/mm.h |  2 ++
 mm/mprotect.c      | 15 +++++++++++----
 2 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/mm.h b/include/linux/mm.h
index 0e8834ac32b7..a697996040ac 100644
--- a/include/linux/mm.h
+++ b/include/linux/mm.h
@@ -458,6 +458,8 @@ struct vm_operations_struct {
 	void (*close)(struct vm_area_struct * area);
 	int (*split)(struct vm_area_struct * area, unsigned long addr);
 	int (*mremap)(struct vm_area_struct * area);
+	int (*may_mprotect)(struct vm_area_struct * area, unsigned long start,
+			    unsigned long end, unsigned long prot);
 	vm_fault_t (*fault)(struct vm_fault *vmf);
 	vm_fault_t (*huge_fault)(struct vm_fault *vmf,
 			enum page_entry_size pe_size);
diff --git a/mm/mprotect.c b/mm/mprotect.c
index bf38dfbbb4b4..18732543b295 100644
--- a/mm/mprotect.c
+++ b/mm/mprotect.c
@@ -547,13 +547,20 @@ static int do_mprotect_pkey(unsigned long start, size_t len,
 			goto out;
 		}
 
-		error = security_file_mprotect(vma, reqprot, prot);
-		if (error)
-			goto out;
-
 		tmp = vma->vm_end;
 		if (tmp > end)
 			tmp = end;
+
+		if (vma->vm_ops && vma->vm_ops->may_mprotect) {
+			error = vma->vm_ops->may_mprotect(vma, nstart, tmp, prot);
+			if (error)
+				goto out;
+		}
+
+		error = security_file_mprotect(vma, reqprot, prot);
+		if (error)
+			goto out;
+
 		error = mprotect_fixup(vma, &prev, nstart, tmp, newflags);
 		if (error)
 			goto out;
-- 
2.21.0



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