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scripts/kallsyms.c: fix potential segfault

PATCH In review Xiaochen Wang 3 participants 3 messages May 1, 2011 – May 12, 2011

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#0 lore raw

PATCH 1/1 scripts/kallsyms.c: fix potential segfault

Description:
This bug hardly appears during real kernel compiling,
because the vmlinux symbols table is huge.

But we can still catch it under strict condition , as follows.

   $ echo "c101b97b T do_fork" | ./scripts/kallsyms --all-symbols
   #include <asm/types.h>
   ......
   ......
   .globl kallsyms_token_table
           ALGN
   kallsyms_token_table:
   Segmentation fault (core dumped)
   $

If symbols table is small, all entries in token_profit[0x10000] may decrease to 0 after several calls of compress_symbols() in optimize_result(). In that case, find_best_token() always return 0 and
best_table[i] is set to "\0\0" and best_table_len[i] is set to 2.

As a result, expand_symbol(best_table[0]="\0\0", best_table_len[0]=2, buf) in write_src() will run in infinite recursion until stack overflows, causing segfault.

This patch checks the find_best_token() return value. If all entries in token_profit[0x10000] become 0 according to return value, it breaks the loop in optimize_result().
And expand_symbol() works well when best_table_len[i] is 0.

---
 scripts/kallsyms.c |    2 ++
 1 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
scripts/kallsyms.c +2 -0
index 60dd3eb..487ac6f 100644
@@ -500,6 +500,8 @@ static void optimize_result(void)
 
 			/* find the token with the breates profit value */
 			best = find_best_token();
+			if (token_profit[best] == 0)
+				break;
 
 			/* place it in the "best" table */
 			best_table_len[i] = 2;
Signature · 1 line
1.7.2.3
Acked-by on v1 1/1
#1 lore raw
Quoted 20 lines · Xiaochen Wang

Description:
This bug hardly appears during real kernel compiling,
because the vmlinux symbols table is huge.

But we can still catch it under strict condition , as follows.

   $ echo "c101b97b T do_fork" | ./scripts/kallsyms --all-symbols
   #include <asm/types.h>
   ......
   ......
   .globl kallsyms_token_table
           ALGN
   kallsyms_token_table:
   Segmentation fault (core dumped)
   $

If symbols table is small, all entries in token_profit[0x10000] may decrease to 0 after several calls of compress_symbols() in optimize_result(). In that case, find_best_token() always return 0 and
best_table[i] is set to "\0\0" and best_table_len[i] is set to 2.

Quoted 8 lines

As a result, expand_symbol(best_table[0]="\0\0", best_table_len[0]=2, buf) in write_src() will run in infinite recursion until stack overflows, causing segfault.

This patch checks the find_best_token() return value. If all entries in token_profit[0x10000] become 0 according to return value, it breaks the loop in optimize_result().
And expand_symbol() works well when best_table_len[i] is 0.

For this to happen on a real kernel, the list of symbols needs to have less than 256 single characters + two letter sequences, which is highly unlikely. From a quick test, a symbol table of a mere 30 symbols was able to overcome those constraints.

Having said that, the fix is very small, it is not on a hot-path and it is the right thing to do from a correctness stand point, so you have my ack.

Signature · 3 lines
Paulo Marques - www.grupopie.com

"Conservation of angular momentum makes the world go around" - John Clark
#2 lore raw
In reply to Xiaochen Wang
Quoted 30 lines · Xiaochen Wang

Description:
This bug hardly appears during real kernel compiling,
because the vmlinux symbols table is huge.

But we can still catch it under strict condition , as follows.

   $ echo "c101b97b T do_fork" | ./scripts/kallsyms --all-symbols
   #include <asm/types.h>
   ......
   ......
   .globl kallsyms_token_table
           ALGN
   kallsyms_token_table:
   Segmentation fault (core dumped)
   $

If symbols table is small, all entries in token_profit[0x10000] may decrease to 0 after several calls of compress_symbols() in optimize_result(). In that case, find_best_token() always return 0 and
best_table[i] is set to "\0\0" and best_table_len[i] is set to 2.

As a result, expand_symbol(best_table[0]="\0\0", best_table_len[0]=2, buf) in write_src() will run in infinite recursion until stack overflows, causing segfault.

This patch checks the find_best_token() return value. If all entries in token_profit[0x10000] become 0 according to return value, it breaks the loop in optimize_result().
And expand_symbol() works well when best_table_len[i] is 0.

Quoted 4 lines
---
 scripts/kallsyms.c |    2 ++
 1 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

Pushed to kbuild-2.6.git#kbuild, thanks.

Michal