On Tue, Dec 5, 2017 at 5:36 AM, Russell King - ARM Linux
<[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 05, 2017 at 01:30:11PM +0000, Phil Elwell wrote:
>> This was my initial explanation:
>>
>> 1. Data which is marked __ro_after_init is initially writeable.
>>
>> 2. The ro_perms data covers kernel text, read-only data and __ro_after_init
>> data.
>>
>> 3. set_kernel_text_rw marks everything in ro_perms as writeable.
>>
>> 4. set_kernel_text_ro marks everything in ro_perms as read-only, including
>> the __ro_after_init data.
>>
>> 5. Using the function tracing code involves code modification, resulting in
>> calls to
>> __ftrace_modify_code and set_kernel_text_ro.
>>
>> 6. Therefore if function tracing is enabled before kernel_init has completed
>> then the __ro_after_init
>> data is made read-only prematurely.
>
> My question still stands, but let me rephrase. Do we need
> set_kernel_text_*() to touch the read-only data?
We don't _need_ to, but they're all contiguous, so the ro_perms array
used by set_kernel_text_*() is actually only a single entry:
static struct section_perm ro_perms[] = {
/* Make kernel code and rodata RX (set RO). */
{
.name = "text/rodata RO",
.start = (unsigned long)_stext,
.end = (unsigned long)__init_begin,
...
-Kees
--
Kees Cook
Pixel Security
