From: Christopher Lusk <clusk@northecho.dev>
To: "Mickaël Salaün" <mic@digikod.net>
Cc: "Günther Noack" <gnoack@google.com>,
"Oleg Nesterov" <oleg@redhat.com>,
"Jiri Slaby" <jirislaby@kernel.org>,
"Shuah Khan" <shuah@kernel.org>,
"Tahera Fahimi" <fahimitahera@gmail.com>,
"Paul Moore" <paul@paul-moore.com>,
"Casey Schaufler" <casey@schaufler-ca.com>,
"John Johansen" <john.johansen@canonical.com>,
linux-security-module@vger.kernel.org,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-serial@vger.kernel.org,
linux-kselftest@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [RFC PATCH 1/2] tty: mediate TIOCSIG through task_kill LSM hooks
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2026 18:19:57 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260913221958.839429-2-clusk@northecho.dev> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20260913221958.839429-1-clusk@northecho.dev>
TIOCSIG lets a PTY master holder send SIGINT, SIGQUIT, or SIGTSTP to
the slave's foreground process group. pty_signal() currently uses
kill_pgrp(..., priv=1), which represents the signal as SEND_SIG_PRIV.
check_kill_permission() consequently returns before security_task_kill().
This leaves the operation outside every task_kill LSM policy. In
particular, a task restricted with LANDLOCK_SCOPE_SIGNAL can use a
retained PTY master to signal an out-of-domain foreground process group.
Add a kill_pgrp_lsm() variant selected only by pty_signal(). It invokes
security_task_kill() for each process-group member immediately before
delivery while tasklist_lock remains held. This preserves the existing
per-recipient and partial-success semantics without a separate pre-check
race. Ordinary privileged process-group signals continue to use the
unchanged kill_pgrp() path.
This is an RFC because the policy boundary is not settled. Landlock's
IOCTL documentation warns that pre-existing TTY file descriptors remain
dangerous, while LANDLOCK_SCOPE_SIGNAL separately promises to restrict
signals to processes outside the domain hierarchy. The proposed helper
also makes SELinux, Smack, AppArmor, and other task_kill LSMs mediate
TIOCSIG for the first time. Maintainer guidance is requested on whether
this should instead use a dedicated, opt-in TTY signal hook.
Tested on x86-64 QEMU with a held-constant four-cell effect oracle.
Across three boots per image, the unpatched kernel
delivered 96/96 cross-domain scoped TIOCSIG attempts; the patched kernel
denied 96/96. Both images delivered 96/96 unconfined and 96/96
same-domain TIOCSIG controls, and denied 96/96 scoped direct-kill
anchors. There were no indeterminate cases or kernel diagnostics.
Fixes: 54a6e6bbf3be ("landlock: Add signal scoping")
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/56bffc24f3d0d08b45a686a48e99766b0a0821fa.1780614610.git.hexlabsecurity@proton.me
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8
Assisted-by: Codex:gpt-5.6-sol
Signed-off-by: Christopher Lusk <clusk@northecho.dev>
---
drivers/tty/pty.c | 8 ++++++--
include/linux/sched/signal.h | 1 +
kernel/signal.c | 30 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
3 files changed, 35 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
diff --git a/drivers/tty/pty.c b/drivers/tty/pty.c
index cc7f7091ed9a..8f5eea156ce4 100644
--- a/drivers/tty/pty.c
+++ b/drivers/tty/pty.c
@@ -187,6 +187,7 @@ static int pty_get_pktmode(struct tty_struct *tty, int __user *arg)
/* Send a signal to the slave */
static int pty_signal(struct tty_struct *tty, int sig)
{
+ int ret = 0;
struct pid *pgrp;
if (sig != SIGINT && sig != SIGQUIT && sig != SIGTSTP)
@@ -195,10 +196,13 @@ static int pty_signal(struct tty_struct *tty, int sig)
if (tty->link) {
pgrp = tty_get_pgrp(tty->link);
if (pgrp)
- kill_pgrp(pgrp, sig, 1);
+ ret = kill_pgrp_lsm(pgrp, sig, 1);
put_pid(pgrp);
}
- return 0;
+ /* Preserve the historical success result for an empty process group. */
+ if (ret == -ESRCH)
+ return 0;
+ return ret;
}
static void pty_flush_buffer(struct tty_struct *tty)
diff --git a/include/linux/sched/signal.h b/include/linux/sched/signal.h
index 584ae88b435e..7d6aee7256a3 100644
--- a/include/linux/sched/signal.h
+++ b/include/linux/sched/signal.h
@@ -337,6 +337,7 @@ extern int kill_pid_info(int sig, struct kernel_siginfo *info, struct pid *pid);
extern int kill_pid_usb_asyncio(int sig, int errno, sigval_t addr, struct pid *,
const struct cred *);
extern int kill_pgrp(struct pid *pid, int sig, int priv);
+int kill_pgrp_lsm(struct pid *pid, int sig, int priv);
extern int kill_pid(struct pid *pid, int sig, int priv);
extern __must_check bool do_notify_parent(struct task_struct *, int);
extern void __wake_up_parent(struct task_struct *p, struct task_struct *parent);
diff --git a/kernel/signal.c b/kernel/signal.c
index a5e15bf09d31..758393b7257d 100644
--- a/kernel/signal.c
+++ b/kernel/signal.c
@@ -1426,13 +1426,22 @@ int group_send_sig_info(int sig, struct kernel_siginfo *info,
* control characters do (^C, ^Z etc)
* - the caller must hold at least a readlock on tasklist_lock
*/
-int __kill_pgrp_info(int sig, struct kernel_siginfo *info, struct pid *pgrp)
+static int __kill_pgrp_info_filtered(int sig, struct kernel_siginfo *info,
+ struct pid *pgrp, bool check_lsm)
{
struct task_struct *p = NULL;
int ret = -ESRCH;
do_each_pid_task(pgrp, PIDTYPE_PGID, p) {
- int err = group_send_sig_info(sig, info, p, PIDTYPE_PGID);
+ int err = 0;
+
+ if (check_lsm) {
+ rcu_read_lock();
+ err = security_task_kill(p, info, sig, NULL);
+ rcu_read_unlock();
+ }
+ if (!err)
+ err = group_send_sig_info(sig, info, p, PIDTYPE_PGID);
/*
* If group_send_sig_info() succeeds at least once ret
* becomes 0 and after that the code below has no effect.
@@ -1446,6 +1455,11 @@ int __kill_pgrp_info(int sig, struct kernel_siginfo *info, struct pid *pgrp)
return ret;
}
+int __kill_pgrp_info(int sig, struct kernel_siginfo *info, struct pid *pgrp)
+{
+ return __kill_pgrp_info_filtered(sig, info, pgrp, false);
+}
+
static int kill_pid_info_type(int sig, struct kernel_siginfo *info,
struct pid *pid, enum pid_type type)
{
@@ -1886,6 +1900,18 @@ int kill_pgrp(struct pid *pid, int sig, int priv)
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL(kill_pgrp);
+int kill_pgrp_lsm(struct pid *pid, int sig, int priv)
+{
+ int ret;
+
+ read_lock(&tasklist_lock);
+ ret = __kill_pgrp_info_filtered(sig, __si_special(priv), pid, true);
+ read_unlock(&tasklist_lock);
+
+ return ret;
+}
+EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(kill_pgrp_lsm);
+
int kill_pid(struct pid *pid, int sig, int priv)
{
return kill_pid_info(sig, __si_special(priv), pid);
--
2.55.0
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2026-09-13 22:20 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 8+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-09-13 22:19 [RFC PATCH 0/2] Landlock signal scope and TIOCSIG Christopher Lusk
2026-09-13 22:19 ` Christopher Lusk [this message]
2026-09-13 23:49 ` [RFC PATCH 1/2] tty: mediate TIOCSIG through task_kill LSM hooks Christopher Lusk
2026-09-13 22:19 ` [RFC PATCH 2/2] selftests/landlock: cover TIOCSIG signal scoping Christopher Lusk
2026-09-14 9:34 ` [RFC PATCH 0/2] Landlock signal scope and TIOCSIG Günther Noack
2026-09-14 13:40 ` Christopher Lusk
2026-09-14 17:13 ` Günther Noack
2026-09-14 18:09 ` [PATCH] docs: landlock: clarify TTY signal scoping Christopher Lusk
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