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exec: Force single empty string when argv is empty
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commit dcd46d897adb70d63e025f175a00a89797d31a43 upstream.

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/[email protected]/
[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] KSPP/linux#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/

Reported-by: Ariadne Conill <[email protected]>
Reported-by: Michael Kerrisk <[email protected]>
Cc: Matthew Wilcox <[email protected]>
Cc: Christian Brauner <[email protected]>
Cc: Rich Felker <[email protected]>
Cc: Eric Biederman <[email protected]>
Cc: Alexander Viro <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Christian Brauner <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Ariadne Conill <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Andy Lutomirski <[email protected]>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/[email protected]
[vegard: fixed conflicts due to missing
 886d7de631da71e30909980fdbf318f7caade262^- and
 3950e975431bc914f7e81b8f2a2dbdf2064acb0f^- and
 655c16a8ce9c15842547f40ce23fd148aeccc074]
Signed-off-by: Vegard Nossum <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <[email protected]>
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kees authored and gregkh committed Jun 6, 2022
1 parent 18243d8 commit b50fb8d
Showing 1 changed file with 17 additions and 0 deletions.
17 changes: 17 additions & 0 deletions fs/exec.c
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -1805,6 +1805,9 @@ static int __do_execve_file(int fd, struct filename *filename,
goto out_unmark;

bprm->argc = count(argv, MAX_ARG_STRINGS);
if (bprm->argc == 0)
pr_warn_once("process '%s' launched '%s' with NULL argv: empty string added\n",
current->comm, bprm->filename);
if ((retval = bprm->argc) < 0)
goto out;

Expand All @@ -1829,6 +1832,20 @@ static int __do_execve_file(int fd, struct filename *filename,
if (retval < 0)
goto out;

/*
* When argv is empty, add an empty string ("") as argv[0] to
* ensure confused userspace programs that start processing
* from argv[1] won't end up walking envp. See also
* bprm_stack_limits().
*/
if (bprm->argc == 0) {
const char *argv[] = { "", NULL };
retval = copy_strings_kernel(1, argv, bprm);
if (retval < 0)
goto out;
bprm->argc = 1;
}

retval = exec_binprm(bprm);
if (retval < 0)
goto out;
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