On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 08:18:47PM -0700, Jeff Xu wrote:
In practice: libc could do below: #define MM_IMMUTABLE (MM_SEAL_MPROTECT|MM_SEAL_MUNMAP|MM_SEAL_MREMAP|MM_SEAL_MMAP) mseal(add,len, MM_IMMUTABLE) it will be equivalent to BSD's immutable().
No, it wouldn't, because you've carefully listed the syscalls you're blocking instead of understanding the _concept_ of what you need to block.
In linux cases, I think, eventually, mseal() will have a bigger scope than BSD's mimmutable(). VMA's metadata(vm_area_struct) contains a lot of control info, depending on application's needs, mseal() can be expanded to seal individual control info.
For example, in madvice(2) case: As Jann point out in [1] and I quote: "you'd probably also want to block destructive madvise() operations that can effectively alter region contents by discarding pages and such, ..."
Another example: if an application wants to keep a memory always present in RAM, for whatever the reason, it can call seal the mlock().
To handle those two new cases. mseal() could add two more bits: MM_SEAL_MADVICE, MM_SEAL_MLOCK.
Yes, thank you for demonstrating that you have no idea what you need to block.
It is practical to keep syscall extentable, when the business logic is the same.
I concur with Theo & Linus. You don't know what you're doing. I think the underlying idea of mimmutable() is good, but how you've split it up and how you've implemented it is terrible.
Let's start with the purpose. The point of mimmutable/mseal/whatever is to fix the mapping of an address range to its underlying object, be it a particular file mapping or anonymous memory. After the call succeeds, it must not be possible to make any address in that virtual range point into any other object.
The secondary purpose is to lock down permissions on that range. Possibly to fix them where they are, possibly to allow RW->RO transitions.
With those purposes in mind, you should be able to deduce for any syscall or any madvise(), ... whether it should be allowed.
Look, I appreciate this is only your second set of patches to Linux and you've taken on a big job. But that's all the more reason you should listen to people who are trying to help you.