[v8,5/8] mm/util: Fix possible race condition in kstrdup()

Commit Message

Yafang Shao Aug. 28, 2024, 3:03 a.m. UTC

In kstrdup(), it is critical to ensure that the dest string is always
NUL-terminated. However, potential race condidtion can occur between a
writer and a reader.

Consider the following scenario involving task->comm:

    reader                    writer

  len = strlen(s) + 1;
                             strlcpy(tsk->comm, buf, sizeof(tsk->comm));
  memcpy(buf, s, len);

In this case, there is a race condition between the reader and the
writer. The reader calculate the length of the string `s` based on the
old value of task->comm. However, during the memcpy(), the string `s`
might be updated by the writer to a new value of task->comm.

If the new task->comm is larger than the old one, the `buf` might not be
NUL-terminated. This can lead to undefined behavior and potential
security vulnerabilities.

Let's fix it by explicitly adding a NUL terminator.

Signed-off-by: Yafang Shao <[e-mail]>
Cc: Andrew Morton <[e-mail]>
Cc: Alejandro Colomar <[e-mail]>
---
 mm/util.c | 8 +++++++-
 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

Patch

diff --git a/mm/util.c b/mm/util.c
index bd283e2132e0..9a77a347c385 100644
--- a/mm/util.c
+++ b/mm/util.c
@@ -62,8 +62,14 @@  char *kstrdup(const char *s, gfp_t gfp)
 
 	len = strlen(s) + 1;
 	buf = kmalloc_track_caller(len, gfp);
-	if (buf)
+	if (buf) {
 		memcpy(buf, s, len);
+		/* During memcpy(), the string might be updated to a new value,
+		 * which could be longer than the string when strlen() is
+		 * called. Therefore, we need to add a NUL termimator.
+		 */
+		buf[len - 1] = '\0';
+	}
 	return buf;
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL(kstrdup);