ptrace: slightly saner 'get_dumpable()' logic

Browse source

The 'dumpability' of a task is fundamentally about the memory image of
the task - the concept comes from whether it can core dump or not - and
makes no sense when you don't have an associated mm.

And almost all users do in fact use it only for the case where the task
has a mm pointer.

But we have one odd special case: ptrace_may_access() uses 'dumpable' to
check various other things entirely independently of the MM (typically
explicitly using flags like PTRACE_MODE_READ_FSCREDS).  Including for
threads that no longer have a VM (and maybe never did, like most kernel
threads).

It's not what this flag was designed for, but it is what it is.

The ptrace code does check that the uid/gid matches, so you do have to
be uid-0 to see kernel thread details, but this means that the
traditional "drop capabilities" model doesn't make any difference for
this all.

Make it all make a *bit* more sense by saying that if you don't have a
MM pointer, we'll use a cached "last dumpability" flag if the thread
ever had a MM (it will be zero for kernel threads since it is never
set), and require a proper CAP_SYS_PTRACE capability to override.

Reported-by: Qualys Security Advisory <qsa@qualys.com>
Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Cc: Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

...

This commit is contained in:

Linus Torvalds 2026-05-13 11:37:18 -07:00

parent 59a62ea458

commit 31e62c2ebb

3 changed files with 20 additions and 6 deletions

Show all changes Ignore whitespace when comparing lines Ignore changes in amount of whitespace Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL

Download patch file Download diff file Expand all files Collapse all files

3

include/linux/sched.h

View file

1

kernel/exit.c

View file

22

kernel/ptrace.c

View file