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mount_pseudo(), sget() and MS_KERNMOUNT

DISCUSSION Luis Ressel 2 participants 2 messages Dec 27, 2016 – Jan 4, 2017 VFS

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#0 lore raw

Hello,

With Linux 4.8, the sget() function in fs/super.c got a new permission
check: It now returns -EPERM if
(!(flags & MS_KERNMOUNT) && !ns_capable(user_ns, CAP_SYS_ADMIN)) .

I presume the first half is intented to detect in-kernel mounts? If so, why doesn't mount_pseudo() (in fs/libfs.c) pass the MS_KERNMOUNT flag to sget()?

This behaviour has caused a problem for me: During graphics driver initalization, drm_fs_inode_new() (in drivers/gpu/drm/drm_drv.c) calls simple_pin_fs(). The MS_KERNMOUNT flag is indeed passed down the call chain from there, but it is lost when mount_pseudo() is called, as that function doesn't take a 'flags' argument.

Hence, the first part of the above permission check fails. (The second part also fails under some cicumstances due to a SELinux quirk, and therefore the initalization of my graphics driver doesn't succeed.)

Regards,
Luis Ressel

(Apologies if I'm sending this inquiry to the wrong people. I don't know much about the kernel development workflow, so I decided to send it to whomever get_maintainer.pl spat out, plus the author of the sget() change in 4.8.)

#1 lore raw
Quoted 9 lines · Luis Ressel

Hello,

With Linux 4.8, the sget() function in fs/super.c got a new permission
check: It now returns -EPERM if
(!(flags & MS_KERNMOUNT) && !ns_capable(user_ns, CAP_SYS_ADMIN)) .

I presume the first half is intented to detect in-kernel mounts? If so, why doesn't mount_pseudo() (in fs/libfs.c) pass the MS_KERNMOUNT flag to sget()?

It looks like an oversight that has simply not mattered.

Quoted 9 lines

This behaviour has caused a problem for me: During graphics driver initalization, drm_fs_inode_new() (in drivers/gpu/drm/drm_drv.c) calls simple_pin_fs(). The MS_KERNMOUNT flag is indeed passed down the call chain from there, but it is lost when mount_pseudo() is called, as that function doesn't take a 'flags' argument.

Hence, the first part of the above permission check fails. (The second part also fails under some cicumstances due to a SELinux quirk, and therefore the initalization of my graphics driver doesn't succeed.)

I am concerned that perhaps there is some wrong context in here that is causing SELinux to have problems.

Does this correct your symptoms?

Eric

fs/libfs.c +2 -1
index e973cd51f126..28d6f35feed6 100644
@@ -245,7 +245,8 @@ struct dentry *mount_pseudo_xattr(struct file_system_type *fs_type, char *name,
 	struct inode *root;
 	struct qstr d_name = QSTR_INIT(name, strlen(name));
 
-	s = sget(fs_type, NULL, set_anon_super, MS_NOUSER, NULL);
+	s = sget_userns(fs_type, NULL, set_anon_super, MS_KERNMOUNT|MS_NOUSER,
+			&init_user_ns, NULL);
 	if (IS_ERR(s))
 		return ERR_CAST(s);