mailing list of musl libc
 help / color / mirror / code / Atom feed
From: Rich Felker <dalias@libc.org>
To: Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Cc: linux-api@vger.kernel.org, libc-alpha@sourceware.org,
	musl@lists.openwall.com
Subject: [musl] AT_MINSIGSTKSZ mismatched interpretation kernel vs libc
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2024 16:54:38 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20240829205436.GA14562@brightrain.aerifal.cx> (raw)

As I understand it, the AT_MINSIGSTKSZ auxv value is supposed to be a
suitable runtime value for MINSIGSTKSZ (sysconf(_SC_MINSIGSTKSZ)),
such that it's safe to pass as a size to sigaltstack. However, this is
not how the kernel actually implements it. At least on x86 and
powerpc, the kernel fills it via get_sigframe_size, which computes the
size of the sigcontext/siginfo/etc to be pushed and uses that
directly, without allowing any space for actual execution, and without
ensuring the value is at least as large as the legacy constant
MINSIGSTKSZ. This leads to two problems:

1. If userspace uses the value without clamping it not-below
   MINSIGSTKSZ, sigaltstack will fail with ENOMEM.

2. If the kernel needs more space than MINSIGSTKSZ just for the signal
   frame structures, userspace that trusts AT_MINSIGSTKSZ will only
   allocate enough for the frame, and the program will immediately
   crash/stack-overflow once execution passes to userspace.

Since existing kernels in the wild can't be fixed, and since it looks
like the problem is just that the kernel chose a poor definition of
AT_MINSIGSTKSZ, I think userspace (glibc, musl, etc.) need to work
around the problem, adding a per-arch correction term to
AT_MINSIGSTKSZ that's basically equal to:

    legacy_MINSIGSTKSZ - AT_MINSIGSTKSZ as returned on legacy hw

such that adding the correction term would reproduce the expected
value MINSIGSTKSZ.

The only question is whether the kernel will commit to keeping this
behavior, or whether it would be "fixed" to include all the needed
working space when they eventually decide they want bigger stacks for
some new register file bloat. I think keeping the current behavior, so
we can just add a fixed offset, is probably the best thing to do.

Rich

             reply	other threads:[~2024-08-29 20:54 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 7+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2024-08-29 20:54 Rich Felker [this message]
2024-08-31  9:29 ` Szabolcs Nagy
2024-08-31 15:02   ` Rich Felker
2024-08-31 15:09     ` H.J. Lu
2024-08-31 15:41       ` Rich Felker
2024-09-02 12:07         ` Florian Weimer
2024-09-02 12:51           ` Rich Felker

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=20240829205436.GA14562@brightrain.aerifal.cx \
    --to=dalias@libc.org \
    --cc=libc-alpha@sourceware.org \
    --cc=linux-api@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=musl@lists.openwall.com \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this public inbox

	https://git.vuxu.org/mirror/musl/

This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).