On Fri, Mar 23, 2018 at 12:29:52PM -0700, Matthew Wilcox wrote: > On Fri, Mar 23, 2018 at 03:16:21PM -0400, Rich Felker wrote: > > > Huh, I thought libc was aware of this. Also, I'd expect a libc-based > > > implementation to restrict itself to, eg, only loading libraries in > > > the bottom 1GB to avoid applications who want to map huge things from > > > running out of unfragmented address space. > > > > That seems like a rather arbitrary expectation and I'm not sure why > > you'd expect it to result in less fragmentation rather than more. For > > example if it started from 1GB and worked down, you'd immediately > > reduce the contiguous free space from ~3GB to ~2GB, and if it started > > from the bottom and worked up, brk would immediately become > > unavailable, increasing mmap pressure elsewhere. > > By *not* limiting yourself to the bottom 1GB, you'll almost immediately > fragment the address space even worse. Just looking at 'ls' as a > hopefully-good example of a typical app, it maps: > > linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffef5eef000) > libselinux.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libselinux.so.1 (0x00007fb3657f5000) > libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fb36543b000) > libpcre.so.3 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpcre.so.3 (0x00007fb3651c9000) > libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fb364fc5000) > /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fb365c3f000) > libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fb364da7000) > > The VDSO wouldn't move, but look at the distribution of mapping 6 things > into a 3GB address space in random locations. What are the odds you have > a contiguous 1GB chunk of address space? If you restrict yourself to the > bottom 1GB before running out of room and falling back to a sequential > allocation, you'll prevent a lot of fragmentation. Oh, you're talking about "with random locations" case. Randomizing each map just hopelessly fragments things no matter what you do on 32-bit. If you reduce the space over which you randomize to the point where it's not fragmenting/killing your available vm space, there are so few degrees of freedom left that it's trivial to brute-force. Maybe "libs randomized in low 1GB, everything else near-sequential in high addresses" works half decently, but I have a hard time believing you can get any ASLR that's significantly better than snake oil in a 32-bit address space, and you certainly do pay a high price in total available vm space. Rich