CVE-2016-6136 (published 2016-08-06T20:59Z)

Race condition in the audit_log_single_execve_arg function in kernel/auditsc.c in the Linux kernel through 4.7 allows local users to bypass intended character-set restrictions or disrupt system-call auditing by changing a certain string, aka a "double fetch" vulnerability.

Severity: LOW
CVSS v2 base score: 1.9 (AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N)
CVSS v3 base score: 4.7, MEDIUM (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N)

Weakness information:
cwe_id: CWE-362
cwe_name: Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization ('Race Condition')
description: The product contains a code sequence that can run concurrently with other code, and the code sequence requires temporary, exclusive access to a shared resource, but a timing window exists in which the shared resource can be modified by another code sequence that is operating concurrently.
extended_description: 
            This can have security implications when the expected synchronization is in security-critical code, such as recording whether a user is authenticated or modifying important state information that should not be influenced by an outsider.
            A race condition occurs within concurrent environments, and is effectively a property of a code sequence. Depending on the context, a code sequence may be in the form of a function call, a small number of instructions, a series of program invocations, etc.
            A race condition violates these properties, which are closely related:
               
                  Exclusivity - the code sequence is given exclusive access to the shared resource, i.e., no other code sequence can modify properties of the shared resource before the original sequence has completed execution.
                  Atomicity - the code sequence is behaviorally atomic, i.e., no other thread or process can concurrently execute the same sequence of instructions (or a subset) against the same resource.
               
            A race condition exists when an "interfering code sequence" can still access the shared resource, violating exclusivity. Programmers may assume that certain code sequences execute too quickly to be affected by an interfering code sequence; when they are not, this violates atomicity. For example, the single "x++" statement may appear atomic at the code layer, but it is actually non-atomic at the instruction layer, since it involves a read (the original value of x), followed by a computation (x+1), followed by a write (save the result to x).
            The interfering code sequence could be "trusted" or "untrusted." A trusted interfering code sequence occurs within the product; it cannot be modified by the attacker, and it can only be invoked indirectly. An untrusted interfering code sequence can be authored directly by the attacker, and typically it is external to the vulnerable product.
         
         

Fix information:
repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
commit_details: repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
author: Paul Moore
author_date: 2016-07-19 17:42:57-04:00
msg: audit: fix a double fetch in audit_log_single_execve_arg()

There is a double fetch problem in audit_log_single_execve_arg()
where we first check the execve(2) argumnets for any "bad" characters
which would require hex encoding and then re-fetch the arguments for
logging in the audit record[1].  Of course this leaves a window of
opportunity for an unsavory application to munge with the data.

This patch reworks things by only fetching the argument data once[2]
into a buffer where it is scanned and logged into the audit
records(s).  In addition to fixing the double fetch, this patch
improves on the original code in a few other ways: better handling
of large arguments which require encoding, stricter record length
checking, and some performance improvements (completely unverified,
but we got rid of some strlen() calls, that's got to be a good
thing).

As part of the development of this patch, I've also created a basic
regression test for the audit-testsuite, the test can be tracked on
GitHub at the following link:

 * https://github.com/linux-audit/audit-testsuite/issues/25

[1] If you pay careful attention, there is actually a triple fetch
problem due to a strnlen_user() call at the top of the function.

[2] This is a tiny white lie, we do make a call to strnlen_user()
prior to fetching the argument data.  I don't like it, but due to the
way the audit record is structured we really have no choice unless we
copy the entire argument at once (which would require a rather
wasteful allocation).  The good news is that with this patch the
kernel no longer relies on this strnlen_user() value for anything
beyond recording it in the log, we also update it with a trustworthy
value whenever possible.

Reported-by: Pengfei Wang <wpengfeinudt@gmail.com>
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Paul Moore <paul@paul-moore.com>
repository: repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
repo_name: torvalds/linux
description: Linux kernel source tree
repo_language: C
owner: torvalds
file_changes: filename: auditsc.c
change_type: ModificationType.MODIFY
diff: @@ -73,6 +73,7 @@
 #include <linux/compat.h>
 #include <linux/ctype.h>
 #include <linux/string.h>
+#include <linux/uaccess.h>
 #include <uapi/linux/limits.h>
 
 #include "audit.h"
@@ -82,7 +83,8 @@
 #define AUDITSC_SUCCESS 1
 #define AUDITSC_FAILURE 2
 
-/* no execve audit message should be longer than this (userspace limits) */
+/* no execve audit message should be longer than this (userspace limits),
+ * see the note near the top of audit_log_execve_info() about this value */
 #define MAX_EXECVE_AUDIT_LEN 7500
 
 /* max length to print of cmdline/proctitle value during audit */
@@ -992,184 +994,178 @@ static int audit_log_pid_context(struct audit_context *context, pid_t pid,
 	return rc;
 }
 
-/*
- * to_send and len_sent accounting are very loose estimates.  We aren't
- * really worried about a hard cap to MAX_EXECVE_AUDIT_LEN so much as being
- * within about 500 bytes (next page boundary)
- *
- * why snprintf?  an int is up to 12 digits long.  if we just assumed when
- * logging that a[%d]= was going to be 16 characters long we would be wasting
- * space in every audit message.  In one 7500 byte message we can log up to
- * about 1000 min size arguments.  That comes down to about 50% waste of space
- * if we didn't do the snprintf to find out how long arg_num_len was.
- */
-static int audit_log_single_execve_arg(struct audit_context *context,
-					struct audit_buffer **ab,
-					int arg_num,
-					size_t *len_sent,
-					const char __user *p,
-					char *buf)
+static void audit_log_execve_info(struct audit_context *context,
+				  struct audit_buffer **ab)
 {
-	char arg_num_len_buf[12];
-	const char __user *tmp_p = p;
-	/* how many digits are in arg_num? 5 is the length of ' a=""' */
-	size_t arg_num_len = snprintf(arg_num_len_buf, 12, "%d", arg_num) + 5;
-	size_t len, len_left, to_send;
-	size_t max_execve_audit_len = MAX_EXECVE_AUDIT_LEN;
-	unsigned int i, has_cntl = 0, too_long = 0;
-	int ret;
-
-	/* strnlen_user includes the null we don't want to send */
-	len_left = len = strnlen_user(p, MAX_ARG_STRLEN) - 1;
-
-	/*
-	 * We just created this mm, if we can't find the strings
-	 * we just copied into it something is _very_ wrong. Similar
-	 * for strings that are too long, we should not have created
-	 * any.
-	 */
-	if (WARN_ON_ONCE(len < 0 || len > MAX_ARG_STRLEN - 1)) {
-		send_sig(SIGKILL, current, 0);
-		return -1;
+	long len_max;
+	long len_rem;
+	long len_full;
+	long len_buf;
+	long len_abuf;
+	long len_tmp;
+	bool require_data;
+	bool encode;
+	unsigned int iter;
+	unsigned int arg;
+	char *buf_head;
+	char *buf;
+	const char __user *p = (const char __user *)current->mm->arg_start;
+
+	/* NOTE: this buffer needs to be large enough to hold all the non-arg
+	 *       data we put in the audit record for this argument (see the
+	 *       code below) ... at this point in time 96 is plenty */
+	char abuf[96];
+
+	/* NOTE: we set MAX_EXECVE_AUDIT_LEN to a rather arbitrary limit, the
+	 *       current value of 7500 is not as important as the fact that it
+	 *       is less than 8k, a setting of 7500 gives us plenty of wiggle
+	 *       room if we go over a little bit in the logging below */
+	WARN_ON_ONCE(MAX_EXECVE_AUDIT_LEN > 7500);
+	len_max = MAX_EXECVE_AUDIT_LEN;
+
+	/* scratch buffer to hold the userspace args */
+	buf_head = kmalloc(MAX_EXECVE_AUDIT_LEN + 1, GFP_KERNEL);
+	if (!buf_head) {
+		audit_panic("out of memory for argv string");
+		return;
 	}
+	buf = buf_head;
 
-	/* walk the whole argument looking for non-ascii chars */
+	audit_log_format(*ab, "argc=%d", context->execve.argc);
+
+	len_rem = len_max;
+	len_buf = 0;
+	len_full = 0;
+	require_data = true;
+	encode = false;
+	iter = 0;
+	arg = 0;
 	do {
-		if (len_left > MAX_EXECVE_AUDIT_LEN)
-			to_send = MAX_EXECVE_AUDIT_LEN;
-		else
-			to_send = len_left;
-		ret = copy_from_user(buf, tmp_p, to_send);
-		/*
-		 * There is no reason for this copy to be short. We just
-		 * copied them here, and the mm hasn't been exposed to user-
-		 * space yet.
-		 */
-		if (ret) {
-			WARN_ON(1);
-			send_sig(SIGKILL, current, 0);
-			return -1;
-		}
-		buf[to_send] = '\0';
-		has_cntl = audit_string_contains_control(buf, to_send);
-		if (has_cntl) {
-			/*
-			 * hex messages get logged as 2 bytes, so we can only
-			 * send half as much in each message
-			 */
-			max_execve_audit_len = MAX_EXECVE_AUDIT_LEN / 2;
-			break;
-		}
-		len_left -= to_send;
-		tmp_p += to_send;
-	} while (len_left > 0);
-
-	len_left = len;
-
-	if (len > max_execve_audit_len)
-		too_long = 1;
-
-	/* rewalk the argument actually logging the message */
-	for (i = 0; len_left > 0; i++) {
-		int room_left;
-
-		if (len_left > max_execve_audit_len)
-			to_send = max_execve_audit_len;
-		else
-			to_send = len_left;
-
-		/* do we have space left to send this argument in this ab? */
-		room_left = MAX_EXECVE_AUDIT_LEN - arg_num_len - *len_sent;
-		if (has_cntl)
-			room_left -= (to_send * 2);
-		else
-			room_left -= to_send;
-		if (room_left < 0) {
-			*len_sent = 0;
-			audit_log_end(*ab);
-			*ab = audit_log_start(context, GFP_KERNEL, AUDIT_EXECVE);
-			if (!*ab)
-				return 0;
-		}
+		/* NOTE: we don't ever want to trust this value for anything
+		 *       serious, but the audit record format insists we
+		 *       provide an argument length for really long arguments,
+		 *       e.g. > MAX_EXECVE_AUDIT_LEN, so we have no choice but
+		 *       to use strncpy_from_user() to obtain this value for
+		 *       recording in the log, although we don't use it
+		 *       anywhere here to avoid a double-fetch problem */
+		if (len_full == 0)
+			len_full = strnlen_user(p, MAX_ARG_STRLEN) - 1;
+
+		/* read more data from userspace */
+		if (require_data) {
+			/* can we make more room in the buffer? */
+			if (buf != buf_head) {
+				memmove(buf_head, buf, len_buf);
+				buf = buf_head;
+			}
+
+			/* fetch as much as we can of the argument */
+			len_tmp = strncpy_from_user(&buf_head[len_buf], p,
+						    len_max - len_buf);
+			if (len_tmp == -EFAULT) {
+				/* unable to copy from userspace */
+				send_sig(SIGKILL, current, 0);
+				goto out;
+			} else if (len_tmp == (len_max - len_buf)) {
+				/* buffer is not large enough */
+				require_data = true;
+				/* NOTE: if we are going to span multiple
+				 *       buffers force the encoding so we stand
+				 *       a chance at a sane len_full value and
+				 *       consistent record encoding */
+				encode = true;
+				len_full = len_full * 2;
+				p += len_tmp;
+			} else {
+				require_data = false;
+				if (!encode)
+					encode = audit_string_contains_control(
+								buf, len_tmp);
+				/* try to use a trusted value for len_full */
+				if (len_full < len_max)
+					len_full = (encode ?
+						    len_tmp * 2 : len_tmp);
+				p += len_tmp + 1;
+			}
+			len_buf += len_tmp;
+			buf_head[len_buf] = '\0';
 
-		/*
-		 * first record needs to say how long the original string was
-		 * so we can be sure nothing was lost.
-		 */
-		if ((i == 0) && (too_long))
-			audit_log_format(*ab, " a%d_len=%zu", arg_num,
-					 has_cntl ? 2*len : len);
-
-		/*
-		 * normally arguments are small enough to fit and we already
-		 * filled buf above when we checked for control characters
-		 * so don't bother with another copy_from_user
-		 */
-		if (len >= max_execve_audit_len)
-			ret = copy_from_user(buf, p, to_send);
-		else
-			ret = 0;
-		if (ret) {
-			WARN_ON(1);
-			send_sig(SIGKILL, current, 0);
-			return -1;
+			/* length of the buffer in the audit record? */
+			len_abuf = (encode ? len_buf * 2 : len_buf + 2);
 		}
-		buf[to_send] = '\0';
-
-		/* actually log it */
-		audit_log_format(*ab, " a%d", arg_num);
-		if (too_long)
-			audit_log_format(*ab, "[%d]", i);
-		audit_log_format(*ab, "=");
-		if (has_cntl)
-			audit_log_n_hex(*ab, buf, to_send);
-		else
-			audit_log_string(*ab, buf);
-
-		p += to_send;
-		len_left -= to_send;
-		*len_sent += arg_num_len;
-		if (has_cntl)
-			*len_sent += to_send * 2;
-		else
-			*len_sent += to_send;
-	}
-	/* include the null we didn't log */
-	return len + 1;
-}
 
-static void audit_log_execve_info(struct audit_context *context,
-				  struct audit_buffer **ab)
-{
-	int i, len;
-	size_t len_sent = 0;
-	const char __user *p;
-	char *buf;
+		/* write as much as we can to the audit log */
+		if (len_buf > 0) {
+			/* NOTE: some magic numbers here - basically if we
+			 *       can't fit a reasonable amount of data into the
+			 *       existing audit buffer, flush it and start with
+			 *       a new buffer */
+			if ((sizeof(abuf) + 8) > len_rem) {
+				len_rem = len_max;
+				audit_log_end(*ab);
+				*ab = audit_log_start(context,
+						      GFP_KERNEL, AUDIT_EXECVE);
+				if (!*ab)
+					goto out;
+			}
 
-	p = (const char __user *)current->mm->arg_start;
+			/* create the non-arg portion of the arg record */
+			len_tmp = 0;
+			if (require_data || (iter > 0) ||
+			    ((len_abuf + sizeof(abuf)) > len_rem)) {
+				if (iter == 0) {
+					len_tmp += snprintf(&abuf[len_tmp],
+							sizeof(abuf) - len_tmp,
+							" a%d_len=%lu",
+							arg, len_full);
+				}
+				len_tmp += snprintf(&abuf[len_tmp],
+						    sizeof(abuf) - len_tmp,
+						    " a%d[%d]=", arg, iter++);
+			} else
+				len_tmp += snprintf(&abuf[len_tmp],
+						    sizeof(abuf) - len_tmp,
+						    " a%d=", arg);
+			WARN_ON(len_tmp >= sizeof(abuf));
+			abuf[sizeof(abuf) - 1] = '\0';
+
+			/* log the arg in the audit record */
+			audit_log_format(*ab, "%s", abuf);
+			len_rem -= len_tmp;
+			len_tmp = len_buf;
+			if (encode) {
+				if (len_abuf > len_rem)
+					len_tmp = len_rem / 2; /* encoding */
+				audit_log_n_hex(*ab, buf, len_tmp);
+				len_rem -= len_tmp * 2;
+				len_abuf -= len_tmp * 2;
+			} else {
+				if (len_abuf > len_rem)
+					len_tmp = len_rem - 2; /* quotes */
+				audit_log_n_string(*ab, buf, len_tmp);
+				len_rem -= len_tmp + 2;
+				/* don't subtract the "2" because we still need
+				 * to add quotes to the remaining string */
+				len_abuf -= len_tmp;
+			}
+			len_buf -= len_tmp;
+			buf += len_tmp;
+		}
 
-	audit_log_format(*ab, "argc=%d", context->execve.argc);
+		/* ready to move to the next argument? */
+		if ((len_buf == 0) && !require_data) {
+			arg++;
+			iter = 0;
+			len_full = 0;
+			require_data = true;
+			encode = false;
+		}
+	} while (arg < context->execve.argc);
 
-	/*
-	 * we need some kernel buffer to hold the userspace args.  Just
-	 * allocate one big one rather than allocating one of the right size
-	 * for every single argument inside audit_log_single_execve_arg()
-	 * should be <8k allocation so should be pretty safe.
-	 */
-	buf = kmalloc(MAX_EXECVE_AUDIT_LEN + 1, GFP_KERNEL);
-	if (!buf) {
-		audit_panic("out of memory for argv string");
-		return;
-	}
+	/* NOTE: the caller handles the final audit_log_end() call */
 
-	for (i = 0; i < context->execve.argc; i++) {
-		len = audit_log_single_execve_arg(context, ab, i,
-						  &len_sent, p, buf);
-		if (len <= 0)
-			break;
-		p += len;
-	}
-	kfree(buf);
+out:
+	kfree(buf_head);
 }
 
 static void show_special(struct audit_context *context, int *call_panic)

programming_language: C