379 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
379 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
Definitions
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~~~~~~~~~~~
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Userspace filesystem:
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A filesystem in which data and metadata are provided by an ordinary
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userspace process. The filesystem can be accessed normally through
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the kernel interface.
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Filesystem daemon:
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The process(es) providing the data and metadata of the filesystem.
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Non-privileged mount (or user mount):
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A userspace filesystem mounted by a non-privileged (non-root) user.
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The filesystem daemon is running with the privileges of the mounting
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user. NOTE: this is not the same as mounts allowed with the "user"
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option in /etc/fstab, which is not discussed here.
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Mount owner:
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The user who does the mounting.
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User:
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The user who is performing filesystem operations.
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What is FUSE?
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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FUSE is a userspace filesystem framework. It consists of a kernel
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module (fuse.ko), a userspace library (libfuse.*) and a mount utility
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(fusermount).
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One of the most important features of FUSE is allowing secure,
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non-privileged mounts. This opens up new possibilities for the use of
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filesystems. A good example is sshfs: a secure network filesystem
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using the sftp protocol.
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The userspace library and utilities are available from the FUSE
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homepage:
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http://fuse.sourceforge.net/
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Mount options
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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'fd=N'
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The file descriptor to use for communication between the userspace
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filesystem and the kernel. The file descriptor must have been
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obtained by opening the FUSE device ('/dev/fuse').
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'rootmode=M'
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The file mode of the filesystem's root in octal representation.
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'user_id=N'
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The numeric user id of the mount owner.
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'group_id=N'
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The numeric group id of the mount owner.
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'default_permissions'
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By default FUSE doesn't check file access permissions, the
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filesystem is free to implement it's access policy or leave it to
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the underlying file access mechanism (e.g. in case of network
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filesystems). This option enables permission checking, restricting
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access based on file mode. This is option is usually useful
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together with the 'allow_other' mount option.
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'allow_other'
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This option overrides the security measure restricting file access
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to the user mounting the filesystem. This option is by default only
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allowed to root, but this restriction can be removed with a
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(userspace) configuration option.
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'max_read=N'
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With this option the maximum size of read operations can be set.
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The default is infinite. Note that the size of read requests is
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limited anyway to 32 pages (which is 128kbyte on i386).
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Sysfs
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~~~~~
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FUSE sets up the following hierarchy in sysfs:
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/sys/fs/fuse/connections/N/
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where N is an increasing number allocated to each new connection.
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For each connection the following attributes are defined:
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'waiting'
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The number of requests which are waiting to be transfered to
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userspace or being processed by the filesystem daemon. If there is
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no filesystem activity and 'waiting' is non-zero, then the
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filesystem is hung or deadlocked.
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'abort'
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Writing anything into this file will abort the filesystem
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connection. This means that all waiting requests will be aborted an
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error returned for all aborted and new requests.
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Only a privileged user may read or write these attributes.
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Aborting a filesystem connection
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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It is possible to get into certain situations where the filesystem is
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not responding. Reasons for this may be:
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a) Broken userspace filesystem implementation
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b) Network connection down
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c) Accidental deadlock
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d) Malicious deadlock
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(For more on c) and d) see later sections)
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In either of these cases it may be useful to abort the connection to
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the filesystem. There are several ways to do this:
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- Kill the filesystem daemon. Works in case of a) and b)
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- Kill the filesystem daemon and all users of the filesystem. Works
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in all cases except some malicious deadlocks
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- Use forced umount (umount -f). Works in all cases but only if
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filesystem is still attached (it hasn't been lazy unmounted)
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- Abort filesystem through the sysfs interface. Most powerful
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method, always works.
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How do non-privileged mounts work?
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Since the mount() system call is a privileged operation, a helper
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program (fusermount) is needed, which is installed setuid root.
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The implication of providing non-privileged mounts is that the mount
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owner must not be able to use this capability to compromise the
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system. Obvious requirements arising from this are:
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A) mount owner should not be able to get elevated privileges with the
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help of the mounted filesystem
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B) mount owner should not get illegitimate access to information from
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other users' and the super user's processes
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C) mount owner should not be able to induce undesired behavior in
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other users' or the super user's processes
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How are requirements fulfilled?
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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A) The mount owner could gain elevated privileges by either:
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1) creating a filesystem containing a device file, then opening
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this device
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2) creating a filesystem containing a suid or sgid application,
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then executing this application
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The solution is not to allow opening device files and ignore
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setuid and setgid bits when executing programs. To ensure this
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fusermount always adds "nosuid" and "nodev" to the mount options
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for non-privileged mounts.
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B) If another user is accessing files or directories in the
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filesystem, the filesystem daemon serving requests can record the
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exact sequence and timing of operations performed. This
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information is otherwise inaccessible to the mount owner, so this
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counts as an information leak.
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The solution to this problem will be presented in point 2) of C).
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C) There are several ways in which the mount owner can induce
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undesired behavior in other users' processes, such as:
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1) mounting a filesystem over a file or directory which the mount
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owner could otherwise not be able to modify (or could only
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make limited modifications).
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This is solved in fusermount, by checking the access
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permissions on the mountpoint and only allowing the mount if
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the mount owner can do unlimited modification (has write
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access to the mountpoint, and mountpoint is not a "sticky"
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directory)
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2) Even if 1) is solved the mount owner can change the behavior
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of other users' processes.
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i) It can slow down or indefinitely delay the execution of a
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filesystem operation creating a DoS against the user or the
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whole system. For example a suid application locking a
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system file, and then accessing a file on the mount owner's
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filesystem could be stopped, and thus causing the system
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file to be locked forever.
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ii) It can present files or directories of unlimited length, or
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directory structures of unlimited depth, possibly causing a
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system process to eat up diskspace, memory or other
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resources, again causing DoS.
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The solution to this as well as B) is not to allow processes
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to access the filesystem, which could otherwise not be
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monitored or manipulated by the mount owner. Since if the
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mount owner can ptrace a process, it can do all of the above
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without using a FUSE mount, the same criteria as used in
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ptrace can be used to check if a process is allowed to access
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the filesystem or not.
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Note that the ptrace check is not strictly necessary to
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prevent B/2/i, it is enough to check if mount owner has enough
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privilege to send signal to the process accessing the
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filesystem, since SIGSTOP can be used to get a similar effect.
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I think these limitations are unacceptable?
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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If a sysadmin trusts the users enough, or can ensure through other
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measures, that system processes will never enter non-privileged
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mounts, it can relax the last limitation with a "user_allow_other"
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config option. If this config option is set, the mounting user can
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add the "allow_other" mount option which disables the check for other
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users' processes.
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Kernel - userspace interface
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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The following diagram shows how a filesystem operation (in this
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example unlink) is performed in FUSE.
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NOTE: everything in this description is greatly simplified
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| "rm /mnt/fuse/file" | FUSE filesystem daemon
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| | >sys_read()
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| | >fuse_dev_read()
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| | >request_wait()
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| | [sleep on fc->waitq]
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| >sys_unlink() |
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| >fuse_unlink() |
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| [get request from |
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| fc->unused_list] |
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| >request_send() |
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| [queue req on fc->pending] |
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| [wake up fc->waitq] | [woken up]
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| >request_wait_answer() |
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| [sleep on req->waitq] |
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| | <request_wait()
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| | [remove req from fc->pending]
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| | [copy req to read buffer]
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| | [add req to fc->processing]
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| | <fuse_dev_read()
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| | <sys_read()
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| | [perform unlink]
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| | >sys_write()
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| | >fuse_dev_write()
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| | [look up req in fc->processing]
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| | [remove from fc->processing]
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| | [copy write buffer to req]
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| [woken up] | [wake up req->waitq]
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| | <fuse_dev_write()
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| | <sys_write()
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| <request_wait_answer() |
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| <request_send() |
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| [add request to |
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| fc->unused_list] |
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| <fuse_unlink() |
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| <sys_unlink() |
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There are a couple of ways in which to deadlock a FUSE filesystem.
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Since we are talking about unprivileged userspace programs,
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something must be done about these.
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Scenario 1 - Simple deadlock
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-----------------------------
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| "rm /mnt/fuse/file" | FUSE filesystem daemon
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| >sys_unlink("/mnt/fuse/file") |
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| [acquire inode semaphore |
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| for "file"] |
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| >fuse_unlink() |
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| [sleep on req->waitq] |
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| | <sys_read()
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| | >sys_unlink("/mnt/fuse/file")
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| | [acquire inode semaphore
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| | for "file"]
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| | *DEADLOCK*
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The solution for this is to allow requests to be interrupted while
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they are in userspace:
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| [interrupted by signal] |
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| <fuse_unlink() |
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| [release semaphore] | [semaphore acquired]
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| <sys_unlink() |
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| | >fuse_unlink()
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| | [queue req on fc->pending]
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| | [wake up fc->waitq]
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| | [sleep on req->waitq]
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If the filesystem daemon was single threaded, this will stop here,
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since there's no other thread to dequeue and execute the request.
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In this case the solution is to kill the FUSE daemon as well. If
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there are multiple serving threads, you just have to kill them as
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long as any remain.
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Moral: a filesystem which deadlocks, can soon find itself dead.
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Scenario 2 - Tricky deadlock
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----------------------------
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This one needs a carefully crafted filesystem. It's a variation on
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the above, only the call back to the filesystem is not explicit,
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but is caused by a pagefault.
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| Kamikaze filesystem thread 1 | Kamikaze filesystem thread 2
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| [fd = open("/mnt/fuse/file")] | [request served normally]
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| [mmap fd to 'addr'] |
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| [close fd] | [FLUSH triggers 'magic' flag]
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| [read a byte from addr] |
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| >do_page_fault() |
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| [find or create page] |
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| [lock page] |
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| >fuse_readpage() |
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| [queue READ request] |
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| [sleep on req->waitq] |
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| | [read request to buffer]
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| | [create reply header before addr]
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| | >sys_write(addr - headerlength)
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| | >fuse_dev_write()
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| | [look up req in fc->processing]
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| | [remove from fc->processing]
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| | [copy write buffer to req]
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| | >do_page_fault()
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| | [find or create page]
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| | [lock page]
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| | * DEADLOCK *
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Solution is again to let the the request be interrupted (not
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elaborated further).
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An additional problem is that while the write buffer is being
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copied to the request, the request must not be interrupted. This
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is because the destination address of the copy may not be valid
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after the request is interrupted.
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This is solved with doing the copy atomically, and allowing
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interruption while the page(s) belonging to the write buffer are
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faulted with get_user_pages(). The 'req->locked' flag indicates
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when the copy is taking place, and interruption is delayed until
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this flag is unset.
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Scenario 3 - Tricky deadlock with asynchronous read
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---------------------------------------------------
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The same situation as above, except thread-1 will wait on page lock
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and hence it will be uninterruptible as well. The solution is to
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abort the connection with forced umount (if mount is attached) or
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through the abort attribute in sysfs.
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