x86/elf: Split READ_IMPLIES_EXEC from executable PT_GNU_STACK
The READ_IMPLIES_EXEC workaround was designed for old toolchains that lacked the ELF PT_GNU_STACK marking under the assumption that toolchains that couldn't specify executable permission flags for the stack may not know how to do it correctly for any memory region. This logic is sensible for having ancient binaries coexist in a system with possibly NX memory, but was implemented in a way that equated having a PT_GNU_STACK marked executable as being as "broken" as lacking the PT_GNU_STACK marking entirely. Things like unmarked assembly and stack trampolines may cause PT_GNU_STACK to need an executable bit, but they do not imply all mappings must be executable. This confusion has led to situations where modern programs with explicitly marked executable stacks are forced into the READ_IMPLIES_EXEC state when no such thing is needed. (And leads to unexpected failures when mmap()ing regions of device driver memory that wish to disallow VM_EXEC[1].) In looking for other reasons for the READ_IMPLIES_EXEC behavior, Jann Horn noted that glibc thread stacks have always been marked RWX (until 2003 when they started tracking the PT_GNU_STACK flag instead[2]). And musl doesn't support executable stacks at all[3]. As such, no breakage for multithreaded applications is expected from this change. [1] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20190418055759.GA3155@mellanox.com [2] https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=commitdiff;h=54ee14b3882 [3] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20190423192534.GN23599@brightrain.aerifal.cxSuggested-by: Hector Marco-Gisbert <hecmargi@upv.es> Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org> Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@suse.de> Reviewed-by: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@mellanox.com> Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200327064820.12602-3-keescook@chromium.org
Showing
Please register or sign in to comment