Skip to content
Commit f8808300 authored by Kees Cook's avatar Kees Cook Committed by Linus Torvalds
Browse files

sysctl: clean up char buffer arguments



When writing to a sysctl string, each write, regardless of VFS position,
began writing the string from the start.  This meant the contents of the
last write to the sysctl controlled the string contents instead of the
first.

This misbehavior was featured in an exploit against Chrome OS.  While
it's not in itself a vulnerability, it's a weirdness that isn't on the
mind of most auditors: "This filter looks correct, the first line
written would not be meaningful to sysctl" doesn't apply here, since the
size of the write and the contents of the final write are what matter
when writing to sysctls.

This adds the sysctl kernel.sysctl_writes_strict to control the write
behavior.  The default (0) reports when VFS position is non-0 on a
write, but retains legacy behavior, -1 disables the warning, and 1
enables the position-respecting behavior.

The long-term plan here is to wait for userspace to be fixed in response
to the new warning and to then switch the default kernel behavior to the
new position-respecting behavior.

This patch (of 4):

The char buffer arguments are needlessly cast in weird places.  Clean it
up so things are easier to read.

Signed-off-by: default avatarKees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Cc: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
parent 1c92ab1e
0% or .
You are about to add 0 people to the discussion. Proceed with caution.
Finish editing this message first!
Please register or to comment