From 4f87dac386cc43d5525da7a939d4b4e7edbea22c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Michael Kerrisk Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 14:46:07 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] ipc: Fix 2 bugs in msgrcv() MSG_COPY implementation While testing and documenting the msgrcv() MSG_COPY flag that Stanislav Kinsbursky added in commit 4a674f34ba04 ("ipc: introduce message queue copy feature" => kernel 3.8), I discovered a couple of bugs in the implementation. The two bugs concern MSG_COPY interactions with other msgrcv() flags, namely: (A) MSG_COPY + MSG_EXCEPT (B) MSG_COPY + !IPC_NOWAIT The bugs are distinct (and the fix for the first one is obvious), however my fix for both is a single-line patch, which is why I'm combining them in a single mail, rather than writing two mails+patches. ===== (A) MSG_COPY + MSG_EXCEPT ===== With the addition of the MSG_COPY flag, there are now two msgrcv() flags--MSG_COPY and MSG_EXCEPT--that modify the meaning of the 'msgtyp' argument in unrelated ways. Specifying both in the same call is a logical error that is currently permitted, with the effect that MSG_COPY has priority and MSG_EXCEPT is ignored. The call should give an error if both flags are specified. The patch below implements that behavior. ===== (B) (B) MSG_COPY + !IPC_NOWAIT ===== The test code that was submitted in commit 3a665531a3b7 ("selftests: IPC message queue copy feature test") shows MSG_COPY being used in conjunction with IPC_NOWAIT. In other words, if there is no message at the position 'msgtyp'. return immediately with the error in ENOMSG. What was not (fully) tested is the behavior if MSG_COPY is specified *without* IPC_NOWAIT, and there is an odd behavior. If the queue contains less than 'msgtyp' messages, then the call blocks until the next message is written to the queue. At that point, the msgrcv() call returns a copy of the newly added message, regardless of whether that message is at the ordinal position 'msgtyp'. This is clearly bogus, and problematic for applications that might want to make use of the MSG_COPY flag. I considered the following possible solutions to this problem: (1) Force the call to block until a message *does* appear at the position 'msgtyp'. (2) If the MSG_COPY flag is specified, the kernel should implicitly add IPC_NOWAIT, so that the call fails with ENOMSG for this case. (3) If the MSG_COPY flag is specified, but IPC_NOWAIT is not, generate an error (probably, EINVAL is the right one). I do not know if any application would really want to have the functionality of solution (1), especially since an application can determine in advance the number of messages in the queue using msgctl() IPC_STAT. Obviously, this solution would be the most work to implement. Solution (2) would have the effect of silently fixing any applications that tried to employ broken behavior. However, it would mean that if we later decided to implement solution (1), then user-space could not easily detect what the kernel supports (but, since I'm somewhat doubtful that solution (1) is needed, I'm not sure that this is much of a problem). Solution (3) would have the effect of informing broken applications that they are doing something broken. The downside is that this would cause a ABI breakage for any applications that are currently employing the broken behavior. However: a) Those applications are almost certainly not getting the results they expect. b) Possibly, those applications don't even exist, because MSG_COPY is currently hidden behind CONFIG_CHECKPOINT_RESTORE. The upside of solution (3) is that if we later decided to implement solution (1), user-space could determine what the kernel supports, via the error return. In my view, solution (3) is mildly preferable to solution (2), and solution (1) could still be done later if anyone really cares. The patch below implements solution (3). PS. For anyone out there still listening, it's the usual story: documenting an API (and the thinking about, and the testing of the API, that documentation entails) is the one of the single best ways of finding bugs in the API, as I've learned from a lot of experience. Best to do that documentation before releasing the API. Signed-off-by: Michael Kerrisk Acked-by: Stanislav Kinsbursky Cc: Stanislav Kinsbursky Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org Cc: Serge Hallyn Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" Cc: Pavel Emelyanov Cc: Al Viro Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds --- ipc/msg.c | 2 ++ 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+) diff --git a/ipc/msg.c b/ipc/msg.c index 245db1140ad6..649853105a5d 100644 --- a/ipc/msg.c +++ b/ipc/msg.c @@ -901,6 +901,8 @@ long do_msgrcv(int msqid, void __user *buf, size_t bufsz, long msgtyp, int msgfl return -EINVAL; if (msgflg & MSG_COPY) { + if ((msgflg & MSG_EXCEPT) || !(msgflg & IPC_NOWAIT)) + return -EINVAL; copy = prepare_copy(buf, min_t(size_t, bufsz, ns->msg_ctlmax)); if (IS_ERR(copy)) return PTR_ERR(copy);