From: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@xxxxxxxxxx> Subject: kmod: make request_module() return an error when autoloading is disabled Patch series "module autoloading fixes and cleanups", v5. This series fixes a bug where request_module() was reporting success to kernel code when module autoloading had been completely disabled via 'echo > /proc/sys/kernel/modprobe'. It also addresses the issues raised on the original thread (https://lkml.kernel.org/lkml/20200310223731.126894-1-ebiggers@xxxxxxxxxx/T/#u) by documenting the modprobe sysctl, adding a self-test for the empty path case, and downgrading a user-reachable WARN_ONCE(). This patch (of 4): It's long been possible to disable kernel module autoloading completely (while still allowing manual module insertion) by setting /proc/sys/kernel/modprobe to the empty string. This can be preferable to setting it to a nonexistent file since it avoids the overhead of an attempted execve(), avoids potential deadlocks, and avoids the call to security_kernel_module_request() and thus on SELinux-based systems eliminates the need to write SELinux rules to dontaudit module_request. However, when module autoloading is disabled in this way, request_module() returns 0. This is broken because callers expect 0 to mean that the module was successfully loaded. Apparently this was never noticed because this method of disabling module autoloading isn't used much, and also most callers don't use the return value of request_module() since it's always necessary to check whether the module registered its functionality or not anyway. But improperly returning 0 can indeed confuse a few callers, for example get_fs_type() in fs/filesystems.c where it causes a WARNING to be hit: if (!fs && (request_module("fs-%.*s", len, name) == 0)) { fs = __get_fs_type(name, len); WARN_ONCE(!fs, "request_module fs-%.*s succeeded, but still no fs?\n", len, name); } This is easily reproduced with: echo > /proc/sys/kernel/modprobe mount -t NONEXISTENT none / It causes: request_module fs-NONEXISTENT succeeded, but still no fs? WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 1106 at fs/filesystems.c:275 get_fs_type+0xd6/0xf0 [...] This should actually use pr_warn_once() rather than WARN_ONCE(), since it's also user-reachable if userspace immediately unloads the module. Regardless, request_module() should correctly return an error when it fails. So let's make it return -ENOENT, which matches the error when the modprobe binary doesn't exist. I've also sent patches to document and test this case. Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200310223731.126894-1-ebiggers@xxxxxxxxxx Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200312202552.241885-1-ebiggers@xxxxxxxxxx Signed-off-by: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@xxxxxxxxxx> Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Acked-by: Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@xxxxxxxxxx> Reviewed-by: Jessica Yu <jeyu@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Jeff Vander Stoep <jeffv@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Ben Hutchings <benh@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Josh Triplett <josh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- kernel/kmod.c | 4 ++-- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) --- a/kernel/kmod.c~kmod-make-request_module-return-an-error-when-autoloading-is-disabled +++ a/kernel/kmod.c @@ -120,7 +120,7 @@ out: * invoke it. * * If module auto-loading support is disabled then this function - * becomes a no-operation. + * simply returns -ENOENT. */ int __request_module(bool wait, const char *fmt, ...) { @@ -137,7 +137,7 @@ int __request_module(bool wait, const ch WARN_ON_ONCE(wait && current_is_async()); if (!modprobe_path[0]) - return 0; + return -ENOENT; va_start(args, fmt); ret = vsnprintf(module_name, MODULE_NAME_LEN, fmt, args); _
