exec: force single empty string when argv is empty
authorKees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Wed, 16 Feb 2022 04:32:03 +0000 (15:32 +1100)
committerStephen Rothwell <sfr@canb.auug.org.au>
Thu, 17 Feb 2022 03:46:55 +0000 (14:46 +1100)
commit6d55a8934343946a4b044f249791b1a0060954d2
treec81b01280d82c55438c9d37d8712c87bf7735222
parent198aec7283725010cc09bc567852bc17b62a7f0d
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/

Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20220201000947.2453721-1-keescook@chromium.org
Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Reported-by: Ariadne Conill <ariadne@dereferenced.org>
Reported-by: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Ariadne Conill <ariadne@dereferenced.org>
Acked-by: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Acked-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
Cc: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>
Cc: Rich Felker <dalias@libc.org>
Cc: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Cc: Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: Shuah Khan <shuah@kernel.org>
Cc: Yang Yingliang <yangyingliang@huawei.com>
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Stephen Rothwell <sfr@canb.auug.org.au>
fs/exec.c