[PATCH 0/4] Relocate execve() sanity checks

[Eric W. Biederman]

Kees Cook <keescook at chromium.org> writes:

> On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 12:41:27PM -0500, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>> Kees Cook <keescook at chromium.org> writes:
>> > and given the LSM hooks, I think the noexec check is too late as well.
>> > (This is especially true for the coming O_MAYEXEC series, which will
>> > absolutely need those tests earlier as well[1] -- the permission checking
>> > is then in the correct place: during open, not exec.) I think the only
>> > question is about leaving the redundant checks in fs/exec.c, which I
>> > think are a cheap way to retain a sense of robustness.
>> 
>> The trouble is when someone passes through changes one of the permission
>> checks for whatever reason (misses that they are duplicated in another
>> location) and things then fail in some very unexpected way.
>
> Do you think this series should drop the "late" checks in fs/exec.c?
> Honestly, the largest motivation for me to move the checks earlier as
> I've done is so that other things besides execve() can use FMODE_EXEC
> during open() and receive the same sanity-checking as execve() (i.e the
> O_MAYEXEC series -- the details are still under discussion but this
> cleanup will be needed regardless).

I think this series should drop the "late" checks in fs/exec.c  It feels
less error prone, and it feels like that would transform this into
something Linus would be eager to merge because series becomes a cleanup
that reduces line count.

I haven't been inside of open recently enough to remember if the
location you are putting the check fundamentally makes sense.  But the
O_MAYEXEC bits make a pretty strong case that something of the sort
needs to happen.

I took a quick look but I can not see clearly where path_noexec
and the regular file tests should go.

I do see that you have code duplication with faccessat which suggests
that you haven't put the checks in the right place.

I am wondering if we need something distinct to request the type of the
file being opened versus execute permissions.

All I know is being careful and putting the tests in a good logical
place makes the code more maintainable, whereas not being careful
results in all kinds of sharp corners that might be exploitable.
So I think it is worth digging in and figuring out where those checks
should live.  Especially so that code like faccessat does not need
to duplicate them.

Eric