| Message ID | 20241119205529.3871048-1-bjohannesmeyer@gmail.com (mailing list archive) |
|---|---|
| Headers | show |
| Series | dmapool: Mitigate device-controllable mem. corruption | expand |
On Tue, Nov 19, 2024 at 09:55:27PM +0100, Brian Johannesmeyer wrote: > We discovered a security-related issue in the DMA pool allocator. > > V1 of our RFC was submitted to the Linux kernel security team. They > recommended submitting it to the relevant subsystem maintainers and the > hardening mailing list instead, as they did not consider this an explicit > security issue. Their rationale was that Linux implicitly assumes hardware > can be trusted. > > **Threat Model**: While Linux drivers typically trust their hardware, there > may be specific drivers that do not operate under this assumption. Hence, > this threat model assumes a malicious peripheral device capable of > corrupting DMA data to exploit the kernel. In this scenario, the device > manipulates kernel-initialized data (similar to the attack described in the > Thunderclap paper [0]) to achieve arbitrary kernel memory corruption. > > **DMA pool background**. A DMA pool aims to reduce the overhead of DMA > allocations by creating a large DMA buffer --- the "pool" --- from which > smaller buffers are allocated as needed. Fundamentally, a DMA pool > functions like a heap: it is a structure composed of linked memory > "blocks", which, in this context, are DMA buffers. When a driver employs a > DMA pool, it grants the device access not only to these blocks but also to > the pointers linking them. > > **Vulnerability**. Similar to traditional heap corruption vulnerabilities > --- where a malicious program corrupts heap metadata to e.g., hijack > control flow --- a malicious device may corrupt DMA pool metadata. This > corruption can trivially lead to arbitrary kernel memory corruption from > any driver that uses it. Indeed, because the DMA pool API is extensively > used, this vulnerability is not confined to a single instance. In fact, > every usage of the DMA pool API is potentially vulnerable. An exploit > proceeds with the following steps: > > 1. The DMA `pool` initializes its list of blocks, then points to the first > block. > 2. The malicious device overwrites the first 8 bytes of the first block --- > which contain its `next_block` pointer --- to an arbitrary kernel address, > `kernel_addr`. > 3. The driver makes its first call to `dma_pool_alloc()`, after which, the > pool should point to the second block. However, it instead points to > `kernel_addr`. > 4. The driver again calls `dma_pool_alloc()`, which incorrectly returns > `kernel_addr`. Therefore, anytime the driver writes to this "block", it may > corrupt sensitive kernel data. > > I have a PDF document that illustrates how these steps work. Please let me > know if you would like me to share it with you. I know I said it privately, but I'll say it here in public, very cool finding, this is nice work! > **Proposed mitigation**. To mitigate the corruption of DMA pool metadata > (i.e., the pointers linking the blocks), the metadata should be moved into > non-DMA memory, ensuring it cannot be altered by a device. I have included > a patch series that implements this change. Since I am not deeply familiar > with the DMA pool internals, I would appreciate any feedback on the > patches. I have tested the patches with the `DMAPOOL_TEST` test and my own > basic unit tests that ensure the DMA pool allocator is not vulnerable. > > **Performance**. I evaluated the patch set's performance by running the > `DMAPOOL_TEST` test with `DMAPOOL_DEBUG` enabled and with/without the > patches applied. Here is its output *without* the patches applied: > ``` > dmapool test: size:16 align:16 blocks:8192 time:3194110 > dmapool test: size:64 align:64 blocks:8192 time:4730440 > dmapool test: size:256 align:256 blocks:8192 time:5489630 > dmapool test: size:1024 align:1024 blocks:2048 time:517150 > dmapool test: size:4096 align:4096 blocks:1024 time:399616 > dmapool test: size:68 align:32 blocks:8192 time:6156527 > ``` > > And here is its output *with* the patches applied: > ``` > dmapool test: size:16 align:16 blocks:8192 time:3541031 > dmapool test: size:64 align:64 blocks:8192 time:4227262 > dmapool test: size:256 align:256 blocks:8192 time:4890273 > dmapool test: size:1024 align:1024 blocks:2048 time:515775 > dmapool test: size:4096 align:4096 blocks:1024 time:523096 > dmapool test: size:68 align:32 blocks:8192 time:3450830 > ``` You had mentioned that the size:68 numbers were going to be re-run, has that happened and this really is that much of a boost to that size? Or is this the original numbers? thanks, greg k-h
On Tue, Nov 19, 2024 at 3:15 PM Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org> wrote: > I know I said it privately, but I'll say it here in public, very cool > finding, this is nice work! Thanks! I appreciate your earlier feedback as well. > You had mentioned that the size:68 numbers were going to be re-run, has > that happened and this really is that much of a boost to that size? Or > is this the original numbers? I re-ran the test, and the numbers are consistent across multiple runs. I’m also surprised by how significant the improvement is for the 68-byte block size. Thanks, Brian Johannesmeyer
On Tue, Nov 19, 2024 at 09:55:27PM +0100, Brian Johannesmeyer wrote: > We discovered a security-related issue in the DMA pool allocator. > > V1 of our RFC was submitted to the Linux kernel security team. They > recommended submitting it to the relevant subsystem maintainers and the > hardening mailing list instead, as they did not consider this an explicit > security issue. Their rationale was that Linux implicitly assumes hardware > can be trusted. You should probably Cc Keith as the person who most recently did major work on the dmpool code and might still remember how it works. > > **Threat Model**: While Linux drivers typically trust their hardware, there > may be specific drivers that do not operate under this assumption. Hence, > this threat model assumes a malicious peripheral device capable of > corrupting DMA data to exploit the kernel. In this scenario, the device > manipulates kernel-initialized data (similar to the attack described in the > Thunderclap paper [0]) to achieve arbitrary kernel memory corruption. > > **DMA pool background**. A DMA pool aims to reduce the overhead of DMA > allocations by creating a large DMA buffer --- the "pool" --- from which > smaller buffers are allocated as needed. Fundamentally, a DMA pool > functions like a heap: it is a structure composed of linked memory > "blocks", which, in this context, are DMA buffers. When a driver employs a > DMA pool, it grants the device access not only to these blocks but also to > the pointers linking them. > > **Vulnerability**. Similar to traditional heap corruption vulnerabilities > --- where a malicious program corrupts heap metadata to e.g., hijack > control flow --- a malicious device may corrupt DMA pool metadata. This > corruption can trivially lead to arbitrary kernel memory corruption from > any driver that uses it. Indeed, because the DMA pool API is extensively > used, this vulnerability is not confined to a single instance. In fact, > every usage of the DMA pool API is potentially vulnerable. An exploit > proceeds with the following steps: > > 1. The DMA `pool` initializes its list of blocks, then points to the first > block. > 2. The malicious device overwrites the first 8 bytes of the first block --- > which contain its `next_block` pointer --- to an arbitrary kernel address, > `kernel_addr`. > 3. The driver makes its first call to `dma_pool_alloc()`, after which, the > pool should point to the second block. However, it instead points to > `kernel_addr`. > 4. The driver again calls `dma_pool_alloc()`, which incorrectly returns > `kernel_addr`. Therefore, anytime the driver writes to this "block", it may > corrupt sensitive kernel data. > > I have a PDF document that illustrates how these steps work. Please let me > know if you would like me to share it with you. > > **Proposed mitigation**. To mitigate the corruption of DMA pool metadata > (i.e., the pointers linking the blocks), the metadata should be moved into > non-DMA memory, ensuring it cannot be altered by a device. I have included > a patch series that implements this change. Since I am not deeply familiar > with the DMA pool internals, I would appreciate any feedback on the > patches. I have tested the patches with the `DMAPOOL_TEST` test and my own > basic unit tests that ensure the DMA pool allocator is not vulnerable. > > **Performance**. I evaluated the patch set's performance by running the > `DMAPOOL_TEST` test with `DMAPOOL_DEBUG` enabled and with/without the > patches applied. Here is its output *without* the patches applied: > ``` > dmapool test: size:16 align:16 blocks:8192 time:3194110 > dmapool test: size:64 align:64 blocks:8192 time:4730440 > dmapool test: size:256 align:256 blocks:8192 time:5489630 > dmapool test: size:1024 align:1024 blocks:2048 time:517150 > dmapool test: size:4096 align:4096 blocks:1024 time:399616 > dmapool test: size:68 align:32 blocks:8192 time:6156527 > ``` > > And here is its output *with* the patches applied: > ``` > dmapool test: size:16 align:16 blocks:8192 time:3541031 > dmapool test: size:64 align:64 blocks:8192 time:4227262 > dmapool test: size:256 align:256 blocks:8192 time:4890273 > dmapool test: size:1024 align:1024 blocks:2048 time:515775 > dmapool test: size:4096 align:4096 blocks:1024 time:523096 > dmapool test: size:68 align:32 blocks:8192 time:3450830 > ``` > > Based on my interpretation of the output, the patch set does not appear to > negatively impact performance. In fact, it shows slight performance > improvements in some tests (i.e., for sizes 64, 256, 1024, and 68). > > I speculate that these performance gains may be due to improved spatial > locality of the `next_block` pointers. With the patches applied, the > `next_block` pointers are consistently spaced 24 bytes apart, matching the > new size of `struct dma_block`. Previously, the spacing between > `next_block` pointers depended on the block size, so for 1024-byte blocks, > the pointers were spaced 1024 bytes apart. However, I am still unsure why > the performance improvement for 68-byte blocks is so significant. > > [0] Link: https://www.csl.sri.com/~neumann/ndss-iommu.pdf > > Brian Johannesmeyer (2): > dmapool: Move pool metadata into non-DMA memory > dmapool: Use pool_find_block() in pool_block_err() > > mm/dmapool.c | 96 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------------------ > 1 file changed, 63 insertions(+), 33 deletions(-) > > -- > 2.34.1 > > ---end quoted text---
On Wed, Nov 20, 2024 at 01:29:19AM -0800, Christoph Hellwig wrote: > On Tue, Nov 19, 2024 at 09:55:27PM +0100, Brian Johannesmeyer wrote: > > We discovered a security-related issue in the DMA pool allocator. > > > > V1 of our RFC was submitted to the Linux kernel security team. They > > recommended submitting it to the relevant subsystem maintainers and the > > hardening mailing list instead, as they did not consider this an explicit > > security issue. Their rationale was that Linux implicitly assumes hardware > > can be trusted. > > You should probably Cc Keith as the person who most recently did major > work on the dmpool code and might still remember how it works. Thanks. The intrusive list was overlayed in the freed blocks for spatial optimizations. If you're moving these field outside of it (I'll have to review the patch on lore), you can probably relax the minimum dma block size too since we don't need to hold the data structure information in it. > > **Threat Model**: While Linux drivers typically trust their hardware, there > > may be specific drivers that do not operate under this assumption. Hence, > > this threat model assumes a malicious peripheral device capable of > > corrupting DMA data to exploit the kernel. In this scenario, the device > > manipulates kernel-initialized data (similar to the attack described in the > > Thunderclap paper [0]) to achieve arbitrary kernel memory corruption. > > > > **DMA pool background**. A DMA pool aims to reduce the overhead of DMA > > allocations by creating a large DMA buffer --- the "pool" --- from which > > smaller buffers are allocated as needed. Fundamentally, a DMA pool > > functions like a heap: it is a structure composed of linked memory > > "blocks", which, in this context, are DMA buffers. When a driver employs a > > DMA pool, it grants the device access not only to these blocks but also to > > the pointers linking them. > > > > **Vulnerability**. Similar to traditional heap corruption vulnerabilities > > --- where a malicious program corrupts heap metadata to e.g., hijack > > control flow --- a malicious device may corrupt DMA pool metadata. This > > corruption can trivially lead to arbitrary kernel memory corruption from > > any driver that uses it. Indeed, because the DMA pool API is extensively > > used, this vulnerability is not confined to a single instance. In fact, > > every usage of the DMA pool API is potentially vulnerable. An exploit > > proceeds with the following steps: > > > > 1. The DMA `pool` initializes its list of blocks, then points to the first > > block. > > 2. The malicious device overwrites the first 8 bytes of the first block --- > > which contain its `next_block` pointer --- to an arbitrary kernel address, > > `kernel_addr`. > > 3. The driver makes its first call to `dma_pool_alloc()`, after which, the > > pool should point to the second block. However, it instead points to > > `kernel_addr`. > > 4. The driver again calls `dma_pool_alloc()`, which incorrectly returns > > `kernel_addr`. Therefore, anytime the driver writes to this "block", it may > > corrupt sensitive kernel data. > > > > I have a PDF document that illustrates how these steps work. Please let me > > know if you would like me to share it with you. > > > > **Proposed mitigation**. To mitigate the corruption of DMA pool metadata > > (i.e., the pointers linking the blocks), the metadata should be moved into > > non-DMA memory, ensuring it cannot be altered by a device. I have included > > a patch series that implements this change. Since I am not deeply familiar > > with the DMA pool internals, I would appreciate any feedback on the > > patches. I have tested the patches with the `DMAPOOL_TEST` test and my own > > basic unit tests that ensure the DMA pool allocator is not vulnerable. > > > > **Performance**. I evaluated the patch set's performance by running the > > `DMAPOOL_TEST` test with `DMAPOOL_DEBUG` enabled and with/without the > > patches applied. Here is its output *without* the patches applied: > > ``` > > dmapool test: size:16 align:16 blocks:8192 time:3194110 > > dmapool test: size:64 align:64 blocks:8192 time:4730440 > > dmapool test: size:256 align:256 blocks:8192 time:5489630 > > dmapool test: size:1024 align:1024 blocks:2048 time:517150 > > dmapool test: size:4096 align:4096 blocks:1024 time:399616 > > dmapool test: size:68 align:32 blocks:8192 time:6156527 > > ``` > > > > And here is its output *with* the patches applied: > > ``` > > dmapool test: size:16 align:16 blocks:8192 time:3541031 > > dmapool test: size:64 align:64 blocks:8192 time:4227262 > > dmapool test: size:256 align:256 blocks:8192 time:4890273 > > dmapool test: size:1024 align:1024 blocks:2048 time:515775 > > dmapool test: size:4096 align:4096 blocks:1024 time:523096 > > dmapool test: size:68 align:32 blocks:8192 time:3450830 > > ``` > > > > Based on my interpretation of the output, the patch set does not appear to > > negatively impact performance. In fact, it shows slight performance > > improvements in some tests (i.e., for sizes 64, 256, 1024, and 68). > > > > I speculate that these performance gains may be due to improved spatial > > locality of the `next_block` pointers. With the patches applied, the > > `next_block` pointers are consistently spaced 24 bytes apart, matching the > > new size of `struct dma_block`. Previously, the spacing between > > `next_block` pointers depended on the block size, so for 1024-byte blocks, > > the pointers were spaced 1024 bytes apart. However, I am still unsure why > > the performance improvement for 68-byte blocks is so significant. > > > > [0] Link: https://www.csl.sri.com/~neumann/ndss-iommu.pdf > > > > Brian Johannesmeyer (2): > > dmapool: Move pool metadata into non-DMA memory > > dmapool: Use pool_find_block() in pool_block_err() > > > > mm/dmapool.c | 96 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------------------
On Wed, Nov 20, 2024 at 01:29:19AM -0800, Christoph Hellwig wrote: > On Tue, Nov 19, 2024 at 09:55:27PM +0100, Brian Johannesmeyer wrote: > > **Performance**. I evaluated the patch set's performance by running the > > `DMAPOOL_TEST` test with `DMAPOOL_DEBUG` enabled and with/without the > > patches applied. Here is its output *without* the patches applied: Could you rerun your tests without DMAPOOL_DEBUG enabled? That's the more interesting kernel setup for performance comparisions.
> You should probably Cc Keith as the person who most recently did major > work on the dmpool code and might still remember how it works. Thank you for adding him, and apologies for not including him initially. > The intrusive list was overlayed in the freed blocks for spatial > optimizations. If you're moving these field outside of it (I'll have to > review the patch on lore), you can probably relax the minimum dma block > size too since we don't need to hold the data structure information in > it. I see. AFAICT, relaxing the minimum DMA block size would just mean removing these lines from `dma_pool_create()`: ``` if (size < sizeof(struct dma_block)) size = sizeof(struct dma_block); ``` > Could you rerun your tests without DMAPOOL_DEBUG enabled? That's the > more interesting kernel setup for performance comparisions. Sure, that makes sense. Here are the results with DMAPOOL_DEBUG disabled: **Without the patches applied:** ``` dmapool test: size:16 align:16 blocks:8192 time:11860 dmapool test: size:64 align:64 blocks:8192 time:11951 dmapool test: size:256 align:256 blocks:8192 time:12287 dmapool test: size:1024 align:1024 blocks:2048 time:3134 dmapool test: size:4096 align:4096 blocks:1024 time:1686 dmapool test: size:68 align:32 blocks:8192 time:12050 ``` **With the patches applied:** ``` dmapool test: size:16 align:16 blocks:8192 time:34432 dmapool test: size:64 align:64 blocks:8192 time:62262 dmapool test: size:256 align:256 blocks:8192 time:238137 dmapool test: size:1024 align:1024 blocks:2048 time:61386 dmapool test: size:4096 align:4096 blocks:1024 time:75342 dmapool test: size:68 align:32 blocks:8192 time:88243 ``` These results are consistent across multiple runs. It seems that with DMAPOOL_DEBUG disabled, the patches introduce a significant performance hit. Let me know if you have any suggestions or further tests you'd like me to run. Thanks, Brian Johannesmeyer
On Wed, Nov 20, 2024 at 02:58:54PM -0700, Brian Johannesmeyer wrote: > These results are consistent across multiple runs. It seems that with > DMAPOOL_DEBUG disabled, the patches introduce a significant > performance hit. Let me know if you have any suggestions or further > tests you'd like me to run. That's what I was afraid of. I was working on the dma pool because it showed significant lock contention on the pool for storage heavy workloads, so cutting down the critical section was priority. With the current kernel, the dma pool doesn't even register on the profiles anymore, so it'd be great to keep it that way. The idea for embedding the links in freed blocks was assuming a driver wouldn't ask the kernel to free a dma block if the mapped device was still using it. Untrustworthy hardware is why we can't have nice things... Here's my quick thoughts at this late hour, though I might have something else tomorrow. If the links are external to the dma addr being freed, then I think you need to change the entire alloc/free API to replace the dma_addr_t handle with a new type, like a tuple of { dma_addr_t, priv_list_link } That should make it possible to preserve the low constant time to alloc and free in the critical section, which I think is a good thing to have. I found 170 uses of dma_pool_alloc, and 360 dma_pool_free in the kernel, so changing the API is no small task. :(