Commit 7660a6fd authored by Kees Cook's avatar Kees Cook Committed by Linus Torvalds

mm: allow slab_nomerge to be set at build time

Some hardened environments want to build kernels with slab_nomerge
already set (so that they do not depend on remembering to set the kernel
command line option).  This is desired to reduce the risk of kernel heap
overflows being able to overwrite objects from merged caches and changes
the requirements for cache layout control, increasing the difficulty of
these attacks.  By keeping caches unmerged, these kinds of exploits can
usually only damage objects in the same cache (though the risk to
metadata exploitation is unchanged).

Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20170620230911.GA25238@beastSigned-off-by: default avatarKees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Cc: Daniel Micay <danielmicay@gmail.com>
Cc: David Windsor <dave@nullcore.net>
Cc: Eric Biggers <ebiggers3@gmail.com>
Cc: Christoph Lameter <cl@linux.com>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Daniel Micay <danielmicay@gmail.com>
Cc: David Windsor <dave@nullcore.net>
Cc: Eric Biggers <ebiggers3@gmail.com>
Cc: Pekka Enberg <penberg@kernel.org>
Cc: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc: Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@lge.com>
Cc: "Rafael J. Wysocki" <rafael.j.wysocki@intel.com>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
Cc: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@kernel.org>
Cc: "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Cc: Nicolas Pitre <nicolas.pitre@linaro.org>
Cc: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Cc: Daniel Mack <daniel@zonque.org>
Cc: Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <bigeasy@linutronix.de>
Cc: Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com>
Cc: Helge Deller <deller@gmx.de>
Cc: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
Cc: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
parent e0771950
......@@ -3760,8 +3760,14 @@
slab_nomerge [MM]
Disable merging of slabs with similar size. May be
necessary if there is some reason to distinguish
allocs to different slabs. Debug options disable
merging on their own.
allocs to different slabs, especially in hardened
environments where the risk of heap overflows and
layout control by attackers can usually be
frustrated by disabling merging. This will reduce
most of the exposure of a heap attack to a single
cache (risks via metadata attacks are mostly
unchanged). Debug options disable merging on their
own.
For more information see Documentation/vm/slub.txt.
slab_max_order= [MM, SLAB]
......
......@@ -1548,6 +1548,20 @@ config SLOB
endchoice
config SLAB_MERGE_DEFAULT
bool "Allow slab caches to be merged"
default y
help
For reduced kernel memory fragmentation, slab caches can be
merged when they share the same size and other characteristics.
This carries a risk of kernel heap overflows being able to
overwrite objects from merged caches (and more easily control
cache layout), which makes such heap attacks easier to exploit
by attackers. By keeping caches unmerged, these kinds of exploits
can usually only damage objects in the same cache. To disable
merging at runtime, "slab_nomerge" can be passed on the kernel
command line.
config SLAB_FREELIST_RANDOM
default n
depends on SLAB || SLUB
......
......@@ -47,13 +47,12 @@ static DECLARE_WORK(slab_caches_to_rcu_destroy_work,
/*
* Merge control. If this is set then no merging of slab caches will occur.
* (Could be removed. This was introduced to pacify the merge skeptics.)
*/
static int slab_nomerge;
static bool slab_nomerge = !IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_SLAB_MERGE_DEFAULT);
static int __init setup_slab_nomerge(char *str)
{
slab_nomerge = 1;
slab_nomerge = true;
return 1;
}
......
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