On Sat, May 08, 2021 at 09:46:41AM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> I think follow_pfn() is ok for the actual "this is not a 'struct page'
> backed area", and disabling that case is wrong even going forward.
Every place we've audited using follow_pfn() has been shown to have
some use-after-free bugs like Daniel describes, and a failure to check
permissions bug too.
All the other follow_pfn() users were moved to follow_pte() to fix the
permissions check and this shifts the use-after-free bug away from
being inside an MM API and into the caller mis-using the API by, say,
extracting and using the PFN outside the pte lock.
eg look at how VFIO wrongly uses follow_pte():
static int follow_fault_pfn()
ret = follow_pte(vma->vm_mm, vaddr, &ptep, &ptl);
*pfn = pte_pfn(*ptep);
pte_unmap_unlock(ptep, ptl);
// no protection that pte_pfn() is still valid!
use_pfn(*pfn)
v4l is the only user that still has the missing permissions check
security bug too - so there is no outcome that should keep
follow_pfn() in the tree.
At worst v4l should change to follow_pte() and use it wrongly like
VFIO. At best we should delete all the v4l stuff.
Daniel I suppose we missed this relation to follow_pte(), so I agree
that keeping a unsafe_follow_pfn() around is not good.
Regards,
Jason
