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From: James Houghton <jthoughton@google.com>
To: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
	Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@kernel.org>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
	Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>,  Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>,
	David Hildenbrand <david@kernel.org>,
	Lorenzo Stoakes <ljs@kernel.org>,
	 "Liam R. Howlett" <liam@infradead.org>,
	Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@kernel.org>,
	Mike Rapoport <rppt@kernel.org>,
	 Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@google.com>,
	Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>,
	 Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>,
	Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>,
	 Jim Mattson <jmattson@google.com>, Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>,
	 Pavel Begunkov <asml.silence@gmail.com>,
	 "James E.J. Bottomley" <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com>,
	 "Martin K. Petersen" <mkp@kernel.org>,
	David Sterba <dsterba@suse.com>, Chris Mason <mason@kernel.org>,
	 Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>,
	Daniel Borkmann <daniel@iogearbox.net>,
	 John Fastabend <john.fastabend@gmail.com>,
	Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@kernel.org>,
	 Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>,
	Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@kernel.org>,
	 Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>,
	 Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@kernel.org>,
	Namhyung Kim <namhyung@kernel.org>,
	linux-mm@kvack.org,  linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org,
	kvm@vger.kernel.org, io-uring@vger.kernel.org,
	 linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org, linux-btrfs@vger.kernel.org,
	bpf@vger.kernel.org,  linux-trace-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	linux-perf-users@vger.kernel.org,  linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	James Houghton <jthoughton@google.com>
Subject: [RFC PATCH 08/10] uaccess: Refuse and warn on __copy_from_user_inatomic() without an mm
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2026 21:52:24 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20261026215226.3713941-9-jthoughton@google.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20261026215226.3713941-1-jthoughton@google.com>

__copy_from_user_inatomic() never called should_fail_usercopy(), so the
NULL current->mm check added to uaccess_should_fail() does not cover it.
It is used e.g. by KVM's kvm_read_guest_atomic(), by several
architectures' perf callchain and stack trace code, and by the generic
copy_from_user_inatomic_nontemporal().

Split the NULL mm check out of uaccess_should_fail() into
uaccess_without_mm(), and use it in __copy_from_user_inatomic() to warn
and refuse the copy.

Don't use uaccess_should_fail() there, as that would also start injecting
failures into __copy_from_user_inatomic(), which some callers don't
expect to fail in practice, e.g. __wp_page_copy_user() warns if the copy
fails twice.

copy_from_user_nofault() already fails quietly when current->mm is NULL,
and the generic user stack unwinding entry points (perf_callchain(),
get_perf_callchain() and stack_trace_save_user()) only unwind the user
stack of a user task with an mm, so neither is affected.

Signed-off-by: James Houghton <jthoughton@google.com>
---
 include/linux/uaccess.h | 25 ++++++++++++++++++++-----
 1 file changed, 20 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/uaccess.h b/include/linux/uaccess.h
index 8ab24e706a22..eae204f7261b 100644
--- a/include/linux/uaccess.h
+++ b/include/linux/uaccess.h
@@ -51,20 +51,33 @@
 #endif
 
 /*
- * Return true if a user copy must not be attempted, either because a failure
- * is being injected, or because the current task has no mm.
+ * Return true, and warn, if the current task has no mm, in which case user
+ * memory must not be accessed.
  *
  * Accessing user memory without an mm (e.g. from a kernel thread that is not
  * using kthread_use_mm(), or from a task that has already gone through
  * exit_mm()) is always a bug: the user portion of the address space belongs to
  * whatever mm happens to be lazily loaded, if any, so the access could
  * silently hit another task's memory.
+ *
+ * Note that this only catches a missing mm. It cannot catch a valid mm that
+ * isn't the one the caller expects, e.g. when a file's release or ioctl
+ * handlers run in a different process than the one that created it. Code
+ * that keeps user addresses belonging to a specific mm must check
+ * current->mm against that mm itself (see e.g. KVM's kvm->mm checks).
+ */
+static __always_inline bool uaccess_without_mm(void)
+{
+	return WARN_ON_ONCE(!current->mm);
+}
+
+/*
+ * Return true if a user copy must not be attempted, either because the
+ * current task has no mm, or because a failure is being injected.
  */
 static __always_inline bool uaccess_should_fail(void)
 {
-	if (WARN_ON_ONCE(!current->mm))
-		return true;
-	return should_fail_usercopy();
+	return uaccess_without_mm() || should_fail_usercopy();
 }
 
 /*
@@ -117,6 +130,8 @@ __copy_from_user_inatomic(void *to, const void __user *from, unsigned long n)
 {
 	unsigned long res;
 
+	if (uaccess_without_mm())
+		return n;
 	instrument_copy_from_user_before(to, from, n);
 	check_object_size(to, n, false);
 	res = raw_copy_from_user(to, from, n);
-- 
2.56.0.307.g5fe7bd680c-goog


  parent reply	other threads:[~2026-10-26 21:52 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 23+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-10-26 21:52 [RFC PATCH 00/10] uaccess: Refuse and warn on user accesses when current->mm is NULL James Houghton
2026-10-26 21:52 ` [RFC PATCH 01/10] scsi: bsg: Don't copy sense data to user memory when canceled James Houghton
2026-10-27  2:41   ` Jens Axboe
2026-10-26 21:52 ` [RFC PATCH 02/10] btrfs: Don't copy encoded read " James Houghton
2026-10-27  2:42   ` Jens Axboe
2026-10-26 21:52 ` [RFC PATCH 03/10] bpf: Fail sleepable user copy helpers when current->mm is NULL James Houghton
2026-10-26 22:30   ` bot+bpf-ci
2026-10-26 21:52 ` [RFC PATCH 04/10] stacktrace: Don't unwind the user stack without an mm James Houghton
2026-10-26 22:30   ` bot+bpf-ci
2026-10-26 22:55     ` James Houghton
2026-10-26 21:52 ` [RFC PATCH 05/10] perf/core: " James Houghton
2026-10-26 21:52 ` [RFC PATCH 06/10] uaccess: Refuse and warn on user copies when current->mm is NULL James Houghton
2026-10-26 22:42   ` bot+bpf-ci
2026-10-26 23:41     ` James Houghton
2026-10-26 21:52 ` [RFC PATCH 07/10] uaccess: Fail user nofault helpers quietly " James Houghton
2026-10-26 21:52 ` James Houghton [this message]
2026-10-26 22:30   ` [RFC PATCH 08/10] uaccess: Refuse and warn on __copy_from_user_inatomic() without an mm bot+bpf-ci
2026-10-26 22:41     ` James Houghton
2026-10-26 21:52 ` [RFC PATCH 09/10] uaccess: Refuse and warn on more user accesses " James Houghton
2026-10-26 21:52 ` [RFC PATCH 10/10] uaccess: Move the NULL mm warning out of line James Houghton
2026-10-26 23:02   ` Arnd Bergmann
2026-10-26 23:51     ` James Houghton
2026-10-27  0:12 ` [RFC PATCH 00/10] uaccess: Refuse and warn on user accesses when current->mm is NULL Arnd Bergmann

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