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Kees Cook dcd46d897a exec: Force single empty string when argv is empty
Quoting[1] Ariadne Conill:

"In several other operating systems, it is a hard requirement that the
second argument to execve(2) be the name of a program, thus prohibiting
a scenario where argc < 1. POSIX 2017 also recommends this behaviour,
but it is not an explicit requirement[2]:

    The argument arg0 should point to a filename string that is
    associated with the process being started by one of the exec
    functions.
...
Interestingly, Michael Kerrisk opened an issue about this in 2008[3],
but there was no consensus to support fixing this issue then.
Hopefully now that CVE-2021-4034 shows practical exploitative use[4]
of this bug in a shellcode, we can reconsider.

This issue is being tracked in the KSPP issue tracker[5]."

While the initial code searches[6][7] turned up what appeared to be
mostly corner case tests, trying to that just reject argv == NULL
(or an immediately terminated pointer list) quickly started tripping[8]
existing userspace programs.

The next best approach is forcing a single empty string into argv and
adjusting argc to match. The number of programs depending on argc == 0
seems a smaller set than those calling execve with a NULL argv.

Account for the additional stack space in bprm_stack_limits(). Inject an
empty string when argc == 0 (and set argc = 1). Warn about the case so
userspace has some notice about the change:

    process './argc0' launched './argc0' with NULL argv: empty string added

Additionally WARN() and reject NULL argv usage for kernel threads.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220127000724.15106-1-ariadne@dereferenced.org/
[2] https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/exec.html
[3] https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8408
[4] https://www.qualys.com/2022/01/25/cve-2021-4034/pwnkit.txt
[5] https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/176
[6] https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=execve%5C+*%5C%28%5B%5E%2C%5D%2B%2C+*NULL&literal=0
[7] https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=execlp%3F%5Cs*%5C%28%5B%5E%2C%5D%2B%2C%5Cs*NULL&literal=0
[8] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220131144352.GE16385@xsang-OptiPlex-9020/

Reported-by: Ariadne Conill <ariadne@dereferenced.org>
Reported-by: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
Cc: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>
Cc: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
Cc: Rich Felker <dalias@libc.org>
Cc: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Cc: Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Acked-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
Acked-by: Ariadne Conill <ariadne@dereferenced.org>
Acked-by: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220201000947.2453721-1-keescook@chromium.org
2022-03-01 16:16:26 -08:00
Documentation xen: branch for v5.17-rc3 2022-02-05 10:40:17 -08:00
LICENSES LICENSES/LGPL-2.1: Add LGPL-2.1-or-later as valid identifiers 2021-12-16 14:33:10 +01:00
arch perf/urgent contains 3 fixups: 2022-02-06 10:11:14 -08:00
block block: bio-integrity: Advance seed correctly for larger interval sizes 2022-02-03 21:09:24 -07:00
certs certs: Fix build error when CONFIG_MODULE_SIG_KEY is empty 2022-01-23 00:08:44 +09:00
crypto lib/crypto: blake2s: avoid indirect calls to compression function for Clang CFI 2022-02-04 19:22:32 +01:00
drivers - Remove a bogus warning introduced by the recent PCI MSI irq affinity 2022-02-06 10:00:40 -08:00
fs exec: Force single empty string when argv is empty 2022-03-01 16:16:26 -08:00
include Various bug fixes for ext4 fast commit and inline data handling. Also 2022-02-06 10:34:45 -08:00
init lib/stackdepot: allow optional init and stack_table allocation by kvmalloc() 2022-01-22 08:33:37 +02:00
ipc ipc/sem: do not sleep with a spin lock held 2022-02-04 09:25:05 -08:00
kernel perf/urgent contains 3 fixups: 2022-02-06 10:11:14 -08:00
lib lib/crypto: blake2s: avoid indirect calls to compression function for Clang CFI 2022-02-04 19:22:32 +01:00
mm mm/kmemleak: avoid scanning potential huge holes 2022-02-04 09:25:05 -08:00
net A patch to make it possible to disable zero copy path in the messenger 2022-02-04 09:54:02 -08:00
samples Merge branch 'akpm' (patches from Andrew) 2022-01-20 10:41:01 +02:00
scripts ftrace: Have architectures opt-in for mcount build time sorting 2022-01-27 19:15:44 -05:00
security selinux/stable-5.17 PR 20220203 2022-02-03 16:44:12 -08:00
sound ASoC: Fixes for v5.17 2022-02-01 16:52:54 +01:00
tools perf tools fixes for v5.17: 1st batch 2022-02-06 10:18:23 -08:00
usr kbuild: remove include/linux/cyclades.h from header file check 2022-01-27 08:51:08 +01:00
virt Two larger x86 series: 2022-01-28 19:00:26 +02:00
.clang-format genirq/msi: Make interrupt allocation less convoluted 2021-12-16 22:22:20 +01:00
.cocciconfig scripts: add Linux .cocciconfig for coccinelle 2016-07-22 12:13:39 +02:00
.get_maintainer.ignore Opt out of scripts/get_maintainer.pl 2019-05-16 10:53:40 -07:00
.gitattributes .gitattributes: use 'dts' diff driver for dts files 2019-12-04 19:44:11 -08:00
.gitignore .gitignore: ignore only top-level modules.builtin 2021-05-02 00:43:35 +09:00
.mailmap mailmap: update Christian Brauner's email address 2022-02-01 11:21:31 -08:00
COPYING COPYING: state that all contributions really are covered by this file 2020-02-10 13:32:20 -08:00
CREDITS MAINTAINERS: Removing Ohad from remoteproc/rpmsg maintenance 2021-12-08 10:09:40 -07:00
Kbuild kbuild: rename hostprogs-y/always to hostprogs/always-y 2020-02-04 01:53:07 +09:00
Kconfig kbuild: ensure full rebuild when the compiler is updated 2020-05-12 13:28:33 +09:00
MAINTAINERS ata fixes for 5.17-rc3 2022-02-04 11:52:37 -08:00
Makefile Linux 5.17-rc3 2022-02-06 12:20:50 -08:00
README Drop all 00-INDEX files from Documentation/ 2018-09-09 15:08:58 -06:00

README

Linux kernel
============

There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.  The formatted documentation can also be read online at:

    https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.