namei: LOOKUP_NO_MAGICLINKS: block magic-link resolution
authorAleksa Sarai <cyphar@cyphar.com>
Fri, 6 Dec 2019 14:13:31 +0000 (01:13 +1100)
committerAl Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Mon, 9 Dec 2019 00:09:40 +0000 (19:09 -0500)
commit4b99d4996979d582859c5a49072e92de124bf691
treefa1c3638639fb6d4476e46dba9b03165f1015b90
parent278121417a72d87fb29dd8c48801f80821e8f75a
namei: LOOKUP_NO_MAGICLINKS: block magic-link resolution

/* Background. */
There has always been a special class of symlink-like objects in procfs
(and a few other pseudo-filesystems) which allow for non-lexical
resolution of paths using nd_jump_link(). These "magic-links" do not
follow traditional mount namespace boundaries, and have been used
consistently in container escape attacks because they can be used to
trick unsuspecting privileged processes into resolving unexpected paths.

It is also non-trivial for userspace to unambiguously avoid resolving
magic-links, because they do not have a reliable indication that they
are a magic-link (in order to verify them you'd have to manually open
the path given by readlink(2) and then verify that the two file
descriptors reference the same underlying file, which is plagued with
possible race conditions or supplementary attack scenarios).

It would therefore be very helpful for userspace to be able to avoid
these symlinks easily, thus hopefully removing a tool from attackers'
toolboxes.

This is part of a refresh of Al's AT_NO_JUMPS patchset[1] (which was a
variation on David Drysdale's O_BENEATH patchset[2], which in turn was
based on the Capsicum project[3]).

/* Userspace API. */
LOOKUP_NO_MAGICLINKS will be exposed to userspace through openat2(2).

/* Semantics. */
Unlike most other LOOKUP flags (most notably LOOKUP_FOLLOW),
LOOKUP_NO_MAGICLINKS applies to all components of the path.

With LOOKUP_NO_MAGICLINKS, any magic-link path component encountered
during path resolution will yield -ELOOP. The handling of ~LOOKUP_FOLLOW
for a trailing magic-link is identical to LOOKUP_NO_SYMLINKS.

LOOKUP_NO_SYMLINKS implies LOOKUP_NO_MAGICLINKS.

/* Testing. */
LOOKUP_NO_MAGICLINKS is tested as part of the openat2(2) selftests.

[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20170429220414.GT29622@ZenIV.linux.org.uk/
[2]: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/1415094884-18349-1-git-send-email-drysdale@google.com/
[3]: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/1404124096-21445-1-git-send-email-drysdale@google.com/

Cc: Christian Brauner <christian.brauner@ubuntu.com>
Suggested-by: David Drysdale <drysdale@google.com>
Suggested-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Suggested-by: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Suggested-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Aleksa Sarai <cyphar@cyphar.com>
Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
fs/namei.c
include/linux/namei.h