Check vmalloc return value in vpe_open

Message ID alpine.LNX.2.00.1010301823350.1572@swampdragon.chaosbits.net
State Rejected
Delegated to: Ralf Baechle
Headers show

Commit Message

Jesper Juhl Oct. 30, 2010, 4:37 p.m.
Hi,

I noticed that the return value of the 
vmalloc() call in arch/mips/kernel/vpe.c::vpe_open() is not checked, so we 
potentially store a null pointer in v->pbuffer. As far as I can tell this 
will be a problem. However, I don't know the mips code at all, so there 
may be something, somewhere where I did not look, that handles this in a 
safe manner but I couldn't find it.

To me it looks like we should do what the patch below implements and check 
for a null return and then return -ENOMEM in that case. Comments?

Please CC me on replies as I'm not subscribed to linux-mips.


Signed-off-by: Jesper Juhl <jj@chaosbits.net>
---
 vpe.c |    4 ++++
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)

Comments

root Nov. 7, 2010, 2:29 p.m. | #1
On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 06:37:16PM +0200, Jesper Juhl wrote:

> I noticed that the return value of the 
> vmalloc() call in arch/mips/kernel/vpe.c::vpe_open() is not checked, so we 
> potentially store a null pointer in v->pbuffer. As far as I can tell this 
> will be a problem. However, I don't know the mips code at all, so there 
> may be something, somewhere where I did not look, that handles this in a 
> safe manner but I couldn't find it.
> 
> To me it looks like we should do what the patch below implements and check 
> for a null return and then return -ENOMEM in that case. Comments?

All users check if the buffer was successfully allocated so the code is
safe wrt. to that.

Doesn't mean that it's not a pukeogenic piece of code.  Look at the use of
v->pbuffer in vpe_release for example.  First use it the vmalloc'ed memory
then carefully check the pointer for being non-NULL before calling vfree.
If the pointer could actually be non-NULL that's too late and vfree does
that check itself anyway.  And more such gems, general uglyness and
freedom of concept.  It used to be even worse.

  Ralf

Patch

diff --git a/arch/mips/kernel/vpe.c b/arch/mips/kernel/vpe.c
index 3eb3cde..22b79f6 100644
--- a/arch/mips/kernel/vpe.c
+++ b/arch/mips/kernel/vpe.c
@@ -1092,6 +1092,10 @@  static int vpe_open(struct inode *inode, struct file *filp)
 
 	/* this of-course trashes what was there before... */
 	v->pbuffer = vmalloc(P_SIZE);
+	if (!v->pbuffer) {
+		pr_warning("VPE loader: unable to allocate memory\n");
+		return -ENOMEM;
+	}
 	v->plen = P_SIZE;
 	v->load_addr = NULL;
 	v->len = 0;