Bernd Edlinger <bernd.edlinger@xxxxxxxxxx> writes: > On 3/2/20 4:57 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote: >> Bernd Edlinger <bernd.edlinger@xxxxxxxxxx> writes: >> >>> >>> I tried this with s/EACCESS/EACCES/. >>> >>> The test case in this patch is not fixed, but strace does not freeze, >>> at least with my setup where it did freeze repeatable. >> >> Thanks, That is what I was aiming at. >> >> So we have one method we can pursue to fix this in practice. >> >>> That is >>> obviously because it bypasses the cred_guard_mutex. But all other >>> process that access this file still freeze, and cannot be >>> interrupted except with kill -9. >>> >>> However that smells like a denial of service, that this >>> simple test case which can be executed by guest, creates a /proc/$pid/mem >>> that freezes any process, even root, when it looks at it. >>> I mean: "ln -s README /proc/$pid/mem" would be a nice bomb. >> >> Yes. Your the test case in your patch a variant of the original >> problem. >> >> >> I have been staring at this trying to understand the fundamentals of the >> original deeper problem. >> >> The current scope of cred_guard_mutex in exec is because being ptraced >> causes suid exec to act differently. So we need to know early if we are >> ptraced. >> > > It has a second use, that it prevents two threads entering execve, > which would probably result in disaster. Exec can fail with an error code up until de_thread. de_thread causes exec to fail with the error code -EAGAIN for the second thread to get into de_thread. So no. The cred_guard_mutex is not needed for that case at all. >> If that case did not exist we could reduce the scope of the >> cred_guard_mutex in exec to where your patch puts the cred_change_mutex. >> >> I am starting to think reworking how we deal with ptrace and exec is the >> way to solve this problem. I am 99% convinced that the fix is to move cred_guard_mutex down. Then right after we take cred_guard_mutex do: if (ptraced) { use_original_creds(); } And call it a day. The details suck but I am 99% certain that would solve everyones problems, and not be too bad to audit either. Eric