Re: [PATCH 1/1] kernel/sysctl.c: avoid overflow

[Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu>]

On Tue, Jun 14, 2016 at 01:19:06PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Jun 2016 03:33:08 +0200 Heinrich Schuchardt <xypron.glpk@gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> > An undetected overflow may occur in do_proc_dointvec_minmax_conv_param.
> > 
> > ...
> >
> > --- a/kernel/sysctl.c
> > +++ b/kernel/sysctl.c
> > @@ -2313,7 +2313,17 @@ static int do_proc_dointvec_minmax_conv(bool *negp, unsigned long *lvalp,
> >  {
> >  	struct do_proc_dointvec_minmax_conv_param *param = data;
> >  	if (write) {
> > -		int val = *negp ? -*lvalp : *lvalp;
> > +		int val;
> > +
> > +		if (*negp) {
> > +			if (*lvalp > (unsigned long) INT_MAX + 1)
> > +				return -EINVAL;
> > +			val = -*lvalp;
> > +		} else {
> > +			if (*lvalp > (unsigned long) INT_MAX)
> > +				return -EINVAL;
> > +			val = *lvalp;
> > +		}
> >  		if ((param->min && *param->min > val) ||
> >  		    (param->max && *param->max < val))
> >  			return -EINVAL;
> 
> hm.
> 
> What happens if someone does
> 
> 	echo -1 > /proc/foo
> 
> expecting to get 0xffffffff?  That's a reasonable shorthand, and if we
> change that to spit out EINVAL then people's stuff may break.

I'd go even further, I don't see anymore how it becomes possible
to actually *write* 0xffffffff at all! This function is used by
proc_dointvec_minmax() which is used with extra1=&zero and extra2
not set with some unsigned ints to allow the full range to be
configured (eg: dirty_expire_interval is the first I found by a
quick random look).

So for me this change is bogus.

Willy