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exec: Fix ToCToU between perm check and set-uid/gid usage
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When opening a file for exec via do_filp_open(), permission checking is
done against the file's metadata at that moment, and on success, a file
pointer is passed back. Much later in the execve() code path, the file
metadata (specifically mode, uid, and gid) is used to determine if/how
to set the uid and gid. However, those values may have changed since the
permissions check, meaning the execution may gain unintended privileges.

For example, if a file could change permissions from executable and not
set-id:

---------x 1 root root 16048 Aug  7 13:16 target

to set-id and non-executable:

---S------ 1 root root 16048 Aug  7 13:16 target

it is possible to gain root privileges when execution should have been
disallowed.

While this race condition is rare in real-world scenarios, it has been
observed (and proven exploitable) when package managers are updating
the setuid bits of installed programs. Such files start with being
world-executable but then are adjusted to be group-exec with a set-uid
bit. For example, "chmod o-x,u+s target" makes "target" executable only
by uid "root" and gid "cdrom", while also becoming setuid-root:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root cdrom 16048 Aug  7 13:16 target

becomes:

-rwsr-xr-- 1 root cdrom 16048 Aug  7 13:16 target

But racing the chmod means users without group "cdrom" membership can
get the permission to execute "target" just before the chmod, and when
the chmod finishes, the exec reaches brpm_fill_uid(), and performs the
setuid to root, violating the expressed authorization of "only cdrom
group members can setuid to root".

Re-check that we still have execute permissions in case the metadata
has changed. It would be better to keep a copy from the perm-check time,
but until we can do that refactoring, the least-bad option is to do a
full inode_permission() call (under inode lock). It is understood that
this is safe against dead-locks, but hardly optimal.

Reported-by: Marco Vanotti <[email protected]>
Tested-by: Marco Vanotti <[email protected]>
Suggested-by: Linus Torvalds <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Cc: Eric Biederman <[email protected]>
Cc: Alexander Viro <[email protected]>
Cc: Christian Brauner <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <[email protected]>
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kees committed Aug 13, 2024
1 parent 3eb3cd5 commit f50733b
Showing 1 changed file with 7 additions and 1 deletion.
8 changes: 7 additions & 1 deletion fs/exec.c
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -1692,6 +1692,7 @@ static void bprm_fill_uid(struct linux_binprm *bprm, struct file *file)
unsigned int mode;
vfsuid_t vfsuid;
vfsgid_t vfsgid;
int err;

if (!mnt_may_suid(file->f_path.mnt))
return;
Expand All @@ -1708,12 +1709,17 @@ static void bprm_fill_uid(struct linux_binprm *bprm, struct file *file)
/* Be careful if suid/sgid is set */
inode_lock(inode);

/* reload atomically mode/uid/gid now that lock held */
/* Atomically reload and check mode/uid/gid now that lock held. */
mode = inode->i_mode;
vfsuid = i_uid_into_vfsuid(idmap, inode);
vfsgid = i_gid_into_vfsgid(idmap, inode);
err = inode_permission(idmap, inode, MAY_EXEC);
inode_unlock(inode);

/* Did the exec bit vanish out from under us? Give up. */
if (err)
return;

/* We ignore suid/sgid if there are no mappings for them in the ns */
if (!vfsuid_has_mapping(bprm->cred->user_ns, vfsuid) ||
!vfsgid_has_mapping(bprm->cred->user_ns, vfsgid))
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