On Mon, 1 Jul 2024 15:57:55 +0200 "Jason A. Donenfeld" <Jason@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > The vDSO getrandom() implementation works with a buffer allocated with a > new system call that has certain requirements: > > - It shouldn't be written to core dumps. > * Easy: VM_DONTDUMP. > - It should be zeroed on fork. > * Easy: VM_WIPEONFORK. > > - It shouldn't be written to swap. > * Uh-oh: mlock is rlimited. > * Uh-oh: mlock isn't inherited by forks. > > It turns out that the vDSO getrandom() function has three really nice > characteristics that we can exploit to solve this problem: > > 1) Due to being wiped during fork(), the vDSO code is already robust to > having the contents of the pages it reads zeroed out midway through > the function's execution. > > 2) In the absolute worst case of whatever contingency we're coding for, > we have the option to fallback to the getrandom() syscall, and > everything is fine. > > 3) The buffers the function uses are only ever useful for a maximum of > 60 seconds -- a sort of cache, rather than a long term allocation. > > These characteristics mean that we can introduce VM_DROPPABLE, which > has the following semantics: > > a) It never is written out to swap. > b) Under memory pressure, mm can just drop the pages (so that they're > zero when read back again). > c) It is inherited by fork. > d) It doesn't count against the mlock budget, since nothing is locked. > > This is fairly simple to implement, with the one snag that we have to > use 64-bit VM_* flags, but this shouldn't be a problem, since the only > consumers will probably be 64-bit anyway. > > This way, allocations used by vDSO getrandom() can use: > > VM_DROPPABLE | VM_DONTDUMP | VM_WIPEONFORK | VM_NORESERVE > > And there will be no problem with using memory when not in use, not > wiping on fork(), coredumps, or writing out to swap. The patch is impressively comment-free. It is a little harsh to make readers go poking around in the git history to figure out what VM_DROPPABLE is, and why it exists. Seems hard to test that this mode is working correctly. Can you think of a way for userspace to check this? And if so, add it to selftests?
