Go to file
Eric W. Biederman c16bdeb5a3 rlimit: Fix RLIMIT_NPROC enforcement failure caused by capability calls in set_user
Solar Designer <solar@openwall.com> wrote:
> I'm not aware of anyone actually running into this issue and reporting
> it.  The systems that I personally know use suexec along with rlimits
> still run older/distro kernels, so would not yet be affected.
>
> So my mention was based on my understanding of how suexec works, and
> code review.  Specifically, Apache httpd has the setting RLimitNPROC,
> which makes it set RLIMIT_NPROC:
>
> https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/core.html#rlimitnproc
>
> The above documentation for it includes:
>
> "This applies to processes forked from Apache httpd children servicing
> requests, not the Apache httpd children themselves. This includes CGI
> scripts and SSI exec commands, but not any processes forked from the
> Apache httpd parent, such as piped logs."
>
> In code, there are:
>
> ./modules/generators/mod_cgid.c:        ( (cgid_req.limits.limit_nproc_set) && ((rc = apr_procattr_limit_set(procattr, APR_LIMIT_NPROC,
> ./modules/generators/mod_cgi.c:        ((rc = apr_procattr_limit_set(procattr, APR_LIMIT_NPROC,
> ./modules/filters/mod_ext_filter.c:    rv = apr_procattr_limit_set(procattr, APR_LIMIT_NPROC, conf->limit_nproc);
>
> For example, in mod_cgi.c this is in run_cgi_child().
>
> I think this means an httpd child sets RLIMIT_NPROC shortly before it
> execs suexec, which is a SUID root program.  suexec then switches to the
> target user and execs the CGI script.
>
> Before 2863643fb8, the setuid() in suexec would set the flag, and the
> target user's process count would be checked against RLIMIT_NPROC on
> execve().  After 2863643fb8, the setuid() in suexec wouldn't set the
> flag because setuid() is (naturally) called when the process is still
> running as root (thus, has those limits bypass capabilities), and
> accordingly execve() would not check the target user's process count
> against RLIMIT_NPROC.

In commit 2863643fb8 ("set_user: add capability check when
rlimit(RLIMIT_NPROC) exceeds") capable calls were added to set_user to
make it more consistent with fork.  Unfortunately because of call site
differences those capable calls were checking the credentials of the
user before set*id() instead of after set*id().

This breaks enforcement of RLIMIT_NPROC for applications that set the
rlimit and then call set*id() while holding a full set of
capabilities.  The capabilities are only changed in the new credential
in security_task_fix_setuid().

The code in apache suexec appears to follow this pattern.

Commit 909cc4ae86f3 ("[PATCH] Fix two bugs with process limits
(RLIMIT_NPROC)") where this check was added describes the targes of this
capability check as:

  2/ When a root-owned process (e.g. cgiwrap) sets up process limits and then
      calls setuid, the setuid should fail if the user would then be running
      more than rlim_cur[RLIMIT_NPROC] processes, but it doesn't.  This patch
      adds an appropriate test.  With this patch, and per-user process limit
      imposed in cgiwrap really works.

So the original use case of this check also appears to match the broken
pattern.

Restore the enforcement of RLIMIT_NPROC by removing the bad capable
checks added in set_user.  This unfortunately restores the
inconsistent state the code has been in for the last 11 years, but
dealing with the inconsistencies looks like a larger problem.

Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20210907213042.GA22626@openwall.com/
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20220212221412.GA29214@openwall.com
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20220216155832.680775-1-ebiederm@xmission.com
Fixes: 2863643fb8 ("set_user: add capability check when rlimit(RLIMIT_NPROC) exceeds")
History-Tree: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tglx/history.git
Reviewed-by: Solar Designer <solar@openwall.com>
Signed-off-by: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>
2022-02-17 09:08:05 -06:00
arch perf/urgent contains 3 fixups: 2022-02-06 10:11:14 -08:00
block block: bio-integrity: Advance seed correctly for larger interval sizes 2022-02-03 21:09:24 -07:00
certs certs: Fix build error when CONFIG_MODULE_SIG_KEY is empty 2022-01-23 00:08:44 +09:00
crypto lib/crypto: blake2s: avoid indirect calls to compression function for Clang CFI 2022-02-04 19:22:32 +01:00
Documentation xen: branch for v5.17-rc3 2022-02-05 10:40:17 -08:00
drivers - Remove a bogus warning introduced by the recent PCI MSI irq affinity 2022-02-06 10:00:40 -08:00
fs Various bug fixes for ext4 fast commit and inline data handling. Also 2022-02-06 10:34:45 -08:00
include Various bug fixes for ext4 fast commit and inline data handling. Also 2022-02-06 10:34:45 -08:00
init lib/stackdepot: allow optional init and stack_table allocation by kvmalloc() 2022-01-22 08:33:37 +02:00
ipc ipc/sem: do not sleep with a spin lock held 2022-02-04 09:25:05 -08:00
kernel rlimit: Fix RLIMIT_NPROC enforcement failure caused by capability calls in set_user 2022-02-17 09:08:05 -06:00
lib lib/crypto: blake2s: avoid indirect calls to compression function for Clang CFI 2022-02-04 19:22:32 +01:00
LICENSES LICENSES/LGPL-2.1: Add LGPL-2.1-or-later as valid identifiers 2021-12-16 14:33:10 +01:00
mm mm/kmemleak: avoid scanning potential huge holes 2022-02-04 09:25:05 -08:00
net A patch to make it possible to disable zero copy path in the messenger 2022-02-04 09:54:02 -08:00
samples Merge branch 'akpm' (patches from Andrew) 2022-01-20 10:41:01 +02:00
scripts ftrace: Have architectures opt-in for mcount build time sorting 2022-01-27 19:15:44 -05:00
security selinux/stable-5.17 PR 20220203 2022-02-03 16:44:12 -08:00
sound ASoC: Fixes for v5.17 2022-02-01 16:52:54 +01:00
tools perf tools fixes for v5.17: 1st batch 2022-02-06 10:18:23 -08:00
usr kbuild: remove include/linux/cyclades.h from header file check 2022-01-27 08:51:08 +01:00
virt Two larger x86 series: 2022-01-28 19:00:26 +02:00
.clang-format genirq/msi: Make interrupt allocation less convoluted 2021-12-16 22:22:20 +01:00
.cocciconfig
.get_maintainer.ignore Opt out of scripts/get_maintainer.pl 2019-05-16 10:53:40 -07:00
.gitattributes .gitattributes: use 'dts' diff driver for dts files 2019-12-04 19:44:11 -08:00
.gitignore .gitignore: ignore only top-level modules.builtin 2021-05-02 00:43:35 +09:00
.mailmap mailmap: update Christian Brauner's email address 2022-02-01 11:21:31 -08:00
COPYING COPYING: state that all contributions really are covered by this file 2020-02-10 13:32:20 -08:00
CREDITS MAINTAINERS: Removing Ohad from remoteproc/rpmsg maintenance 2021-12-08 10:09:40 -07:00
Kbuild kbuild: rename hostprogs-y/always to hostprogs/always-y 2020-02-04 01:53:07 +09:00
Kconfig kbuild: ensure full rebuild when the compiler is updated 2020-05-12 13:28:33 +09:00
MAINTAINERS ata fixes for 5.17-rc3 2022-02-04 11:52:37 -08:00
Makefile Linux 5.17-rc3 2022-02-06 12:20:50 -08:00
README Drop all 00-INDEX files from Documentation/ 2018-09-09 15:08:58 -06:00

Linux kernel
============

There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.  The formatted documentation can also be read online at:

    https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.