FAILED: patch "[PATCH] kthread, tracing: Don't expose half-written comm when" failed to apply to 4.4-stable tree

The patch below does not apply to the 4.4-stable tree.
If someone wants it applied there, or to any other stable or longterm tree, then please email the backport, including the original git commit id to <[email protected]>.

thanks,

greg k-h

------------------ original commit in Linus's tree ------------------

From: Snild Dolkow <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2018 09:15:39 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] kthread, tracing: Don't expose half-written comm when
creating kthreads

There is a window for racing when printing directly to task->comm, allowing other threads to see a non-terminated string. The vsnprintf function fills the buffer, counts the truncated chars, then finally writes the \0 at the end.

creator other
vsnprintf:
fill (not terminated)
count the rest trace_sched_waking(p):
... memcpy(comm, p->comm, TASK_COMM_LEN)
write \0

The consequences depend on how 'other' uses the string. In our case, it was copied into the tracing system's saved cmdlines, a buffer of adjacent TASK_COMM_LEN-byte buffers (note the 'n' where 0 should be):

	crash-arm64> x/1024s savedcmd->saved_cmdlines | grep 'evenk'
	0xffffffd5b3818640:     "irq/497-pwr_evenkworker/u16:12"

...and a strcpy out of there would cause stack corruption:

	[224761.522292] Kernel panic - not syncing: stack-protector:
	    Kernel stack is corrupted in: ffffff9bf9783c78

	crash-arm64> kbt | grep 'comm\|trace_print_context'
	#6  0xffffff9bf9783c78 in trace_print_context+0x18c(+396)
	      comm (char [16]) =  "irq/497-pwr_even"

	crash-arm64> rd 0xffffffd4d0e17d14 8
	ffffffd4d0e17d14:  2f71726900000000 5f7277702d373934   ....irq/497-pwr_
	ffffffd4d0e17d24:  726f776b6e657665 3a3631752f72656b   evenkworker/u16:
	ffffffd4d0e17d34:  f9780248ff003231 cede60e0ffffff9b   12..H.x......`..
	ffffffd4d0e17d44:  cede60c8ffffffd4 00000fffffffffd4   .....`..........

The workaround in e09e28671 (use strlcpy in __trace_find_cmdline) was likely needed because of this same bug.

Solved by vsnprintf:ing to a local buffer, then using set_task_comm(). This way, there won't be a window where comm is not terminated.

index 750cb8082694..486dedbd9af5 100644
@@ -325,8 +325,14 @@ struct task_struct *__kthread_create_on_node(int (*threadfn)(void *data),
 	task = create->result;
 	if (!IS_ERR(task)) {
 		static const struct sched_param param = { .sched_priority = 0 };
+		char name[TASK_COMM_LEN];
 
-		vsnprintf(task->comm, sizeof(task->comm), namefmt, args);
+		/*
+		 * task is already visible to other tasks, so updating
+		 * COMM must be protected.
+		 */
+		vsnprintf(name, sizeof(name), namefmt, args);
+		set_task_comm(task, name);
 		/*
 		 * root may have changed our (kthreadd's) priority or CPU mask.
 		 * The kernel thread should not inherit these properties.