linux/security
Marco Elver aebc7b0d8d list: Introduce CONFIG_LIST_HARDENED
Numerous production kernel configs (see [1, 2]) are choosing to enable
CONFIG_DEBUG_LIST, which is also being recommended by KSPP for hardened
configs [3]. The motivation behind this is that the option can be used
as a security hardening feature (e.g. CVE-2019-2215 and CVE-2019-2025
are mitigated by the option [4]).

The feature has never been designed with performance in mind, yet common
list manipulation is happening across hot paths all over the kernel.

Introduce CONFIG_LIST_HARDENED, which performs list pointer checking
inline, and only upon list corruption calls the reporting slow path.

To generate optimal machine code with CONFIG_LIST_HARDENED:

  1. Elide checking for pointer values which upon dereference would
     result in an immediate access fault (i.e. minimal hardening
     checks).  The trade-off is lower-quality error reports.

  2. Use the __preserve_most function attribute (available with Clang,
     but not yet with GCC) to minimize the code footprint for calling
     the reporting slow path. As a result, function size of callers is
     reduced by avoiding saving registers before calling the rarely
     called reporting slow path.

     Note that all TUs in lib/Makefile already disable function tracing,
     including list_debug.c, and __preserve_most's implied notrace has
     no effect in this case.

  3. Because the inline checks are a subset of the full set of checks in
     __list_*_valid_or_report(), always return false if the inline
     checks failed.  This avoids redundant compare and conditional
     branch right after return from the slow path.

As a side-effect of the checks being inline, if the compiler can prove
some condition to always be true, it can completely elide some checks.

Since DEBUG_LIST is functionally a superset of LIST_HARDENED, the
Kconfig variables are changed to reflect that: DEBUG_LIST selects
LIST_HARDENED, whereas LIST_HARDENED itself has no dependency on
DEBUG_LIST.

Running netperf with CONFIG_LIST_HARDENED (using a Clang compiler with
"preserve_most") shows throughput improvements, in my case of ~7% on
average (up to 20-30% on some test cases).

Link: https://r.android.com/1266735 [1]
Link: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/linux/-/blob/main/config [2]
Link: https://kernsec.org/wiki/index.php/Kernel_Self_Protection_Project/Recommended_Settings [3]
Link: https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2019/11/bad-binder-android-in-wild-exploit.html [4]
Signed-off-by: Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230811151847.1594958-3-elver@google.com
Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
2023-08-15 14:57:25 -07:00
..
apparmor + Bug Fixes 2023-07-07 09:55:31 -07:00
bpf selinux: remove the runtime disable functionality 2023-03-20 12:34:23 -04:00
integrity powerpc updates for 6.5 2023-06-30 09:20:08 -07:00
keys sysctl: move security keys sysctl registration to its own file 2023-06-08 15:42:02 -07:00
landlock hostfs: Fix ephemeral inodes 2023-06-12 21:26:19 +02:00
loadpin sysctl-6.4-rc1 2023-04-27 16:52:33 -07:00
lockdown selinux: remove the runtime disable functionality 2023-03-20 12:34:23 -04:00
safesetid SafeSetID: fix UID printed instead of GID 2023-06-20 20:26:00 -04:00
selinux selinux: avoid bool as identifier name 2023-06-05 17:04:01 -04:00
smack smack: Record transmuting in smk_transmuted 2023-05-11 10:05:39 -07:00
tomoyo mm/gup: remove vmas parameter from get_user_pages_remote() 2023-06-09 16:25:26 -07:00
yama sysctl-6.4-rc1 2023-04-27 16:52:33 -07:00
commoncap.c lsm: fix a number of misspellings 2023-05-25 17:52:15 -04:00
device_cgroup.c device_cgroup: Fix kernel-doc warnings in device_cgroup 2023-06-21 09:30:49 -04:00
inode.c Merge branch 'work.mount0' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs 2019-07-19 10:42:02 -07:00
Kconfig mm/slab: remove HAVE_HARDENED_USERCOPY_ALLOCATOR 2023-05-24 15:38:17 +02:00
Kconfig.hardening list: Introduce CONFIG_LIST_HARDENED 2023-08-15 14:57:25 -07:00
lsm_audit.c lsm: fix a number of misspellings 2023-05-25 17:52:15 -04:00
Makefile security: remove unneeded subdir-$(CONFIG_...) 2021-09-03 08:17:20 +09:00
min_addr.c sysctl: pass kernel pointers to ->proc_handler 2020-04-27 02:07:40 -04:00
security.c lsm/stable-6.5 PR 20230626 2023-06-27 17:24:26 -07:00