After a couple of years and multiple LTS releases we received a report
that the behavior of O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT changed starting with v5.7.
On kernels prior to v5.7 combinations of O_DIRECTORY, O_CREAT, O_EXCL
had the following semantics:
(1) open("/tmp/d", O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT)
* d doesn't exist: create regular file
* d exists and is a regular file: ENOTDIR
* d exists and is a directory: EISDIR
(2) open("/tmp/d", O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT | O_EXCL)
* d doesn't exist: create regular file
* d exists and is a regular file: EEXIST
* d exists and is a directory: EEXIST
(3) open("/tmp/d", O_DIRECTORY | O_EXCL)
* d doesn't exist: ENOENT
* d exists and is a regular file: ENOTDIR
* d exists and is a directory: open directory
On kernels since to v5.7 combinations of O_DIRECTORY, O_CREAT, O_EXCL
have the following semantics:
(1) open("/tmp/d", O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT)
* d doesn't exist: ENOTDIR (create regular file)
* d exists and is a regular file: ENOTDIR
* d exists and is a directory: EISDIR
(2) open("/tmp/d", O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT | O_EXCL)
* d doesn't exist: ENOTDIR (create regular file)
* d exists and is a regular file: EEXIST
* d exists and is a directory: EEXIST
(3) open("/tmp/d", O_DIRECTORY | O_EXCL)
* d doesn't exist: ENOENT
* d exists and is a regular file: ENOTDIR
* d exists and is a directory: open directory
This is a fairly substantial semantic change that userspace didn't
notice until Pedro took the time to deliberately figure out corner
cases. Since no one noticed this breakage we can somewhat safely assume
that O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT combinations are likely unused.
The v5.7 breakage is especially weird because while ENOTDIR is returned
indicating failure a regular file is actually created. This doesn't make
a lot of sense.
Time was spent finding potential users of this combination. Searching on
codesearch.debian.net showed that codebases often express semantical
expectations about O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT which are completely contrary
to what our code has done and currently does.
The expectation often is that this particular combination would create
and open a directory. This suggests users who tried to use that
combination would stumble upon the counterintuitive behavior no matter
if pre-v5.7 or post v5.7 and quickly realize neither semantics give them
what they want. For some examples see the code examples in [1] to [3]
and the discussion in [4].
There are various ways to address this issue. The lazy/simple option
would be to restore the pre-v5.7 behavior and to just live with that bug
forever. But since there's a real chance that the O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT
quirk isn't relied upon we should try to get away with murder(ing bad
semantics) first. If we need to Frankenstein pre-v5.7 behavior later so
be it.
So let's simply return EINVAL categorically for O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT
combinations. In addition to cleaning up the old bug this also opens up
the possiblity to make that flag combination do something more intuitive
in the future.
Starting with this commit the following semantics apply:
(1) open("/tmp/d", O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT)
* d doesn't exist: EINVAL
* d exists and is a regular file: EINVAL
* d exists and is a directory: EINVAL
(2) open("/tmp/d", O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT | O_EXCL)
* d doesn't exist: EINVAL
* d exists and is a regular file: EINVAL
* d exists and is a directory: EINVAL
(3) open("/tmp/d", O_DIRECTORY | O_EXCL)
* d doesn't exist: ENOENT
* d exists and is a regular file: ENOTDIR
* d exists and is a directory: open directory
One additional note, O_TMPFILE is implemented as:
#define __O_TMPFILE 020000000
#define O_TMPFILE (__O_TMPFILE | O_DIRECTORY)
#define O_TMPFILE_MASK (__O_TMPFILE | O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT)
For older kernels it was important to return an explicit error when
O_TMPFILE wasn't supported. So O_TMPFILE requires that O_DIRECTORY is
raised alongside __O_TMPFILE. It also enforced that O_CREAT wasn't
specified. Since O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT could be used to create a regular
allowing that combination together with __O_TMPFILE would've meant that
false positives were possible, i.e., that a regular file was created
instead of a O_TMPFILE. This could've been used to trick userspace into
thinking it operated on a O_TMPFILE when it wasn't.
Now that we block O_DIRECTORY | O_CREAT completely the check for O_CREAT
in the __O_TMPFILE branch via if ((flags & O_TMPFILE_MASK) != O_TMPFILE)
can be dropped. Instead we can simply check verify that O_DIRECTORY is
raised via if (!(flags & O_DIRECTORY)) and explain this in two comments.
As Aleksa pointed out O_PATH is unaffected by this change since it
always returned EINVAL if O_CREAT was specified - with or without
O_DIRECTORY.
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20230320071442.172228-1-pedro.falcato@gmail.com
Link: https://sources.debian.org/src/flatpak/1.14.4-1/subprojects/libglnx/glnx-dirfd.c/?hl=324#L324 [1]
Link: https://sources.debian.org/src/flatpak-builder/1.2.3-1/subprojects/libglnx/glnx-shutil.c/?hl=251#L251 [2]
Link: https://sources.debian.org/src/ostree/2022.7-2/libglnx/glnx-dirfd.c/?hl=324#L324 [3]
Link: https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2014/11/26/14 [4]
Reported-by: Pedro Falcato <pedro.falcato@gmail.com>
Cc: Aleksa Sarai <cyphar@cyphar.com>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
43b4506326