Bug 2347695 (CVE-2022-49264) - CVE-2022-49264 kernel: exec: Force single empty string when argv is empty
Summary: CVE-2022-49264 kernel: exec: Force single empty string when argv is empty
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2022-49264
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security DevOps Team
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2025-02-26 03:03 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2025-05-05 14:59 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-02-26 03:03:30 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

exec: Force single empty string when argv is empty

Quoting[1] Ariadne Conill:

"In several other operating systems, it is a hard requirement that the
second argument to execve(2) be the name of a program, thus prohibiting
a scenario where argc < 1. POSIX 2017 also recommends this behaviour,
but it is not an explicit requirement[2]:

    The argument arg0 should point to a filename string that is
    associated with the process being started by one of the exec
    functions.
...
Interestingly, Michael Kerrisk opened an issue about this in 2008[3],
but there was no consensus to support fixing this issue then.
Hopefully now that CVE-2021-4034 shows practical exploitative use[4]
of this bug in a shellcode, we can reconsider.

This issue is being tracked in the KSPP issue tracker[5]."

While the initial code searches[6][7] turned up what appeared to be
mostly corner case tests, trying to that just reject argv == NULL
(or an immediately terminated pointer list) quickly started tripping[8]
existing userspace programs.

The next best approach is forcing a single empty string into argv and
adjusting argc to match. The number of programs depending on argc == 0
seems a smaller set than those calling execve with a NULL argv.

Account for the additional stack space in bprm_stack_limits(). Inject an
empty string when argc == 0 (and set argc = 1). Warn about the case so
userspace has some notice about the change:

    process './argc0' launched './argc0' with NULL argv: empty string added

Additionally WARN() and reject NULL argv usage for kernel threads.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220127000724.15106-1-ariadne@dereferenced.org/
[2] https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/exec.html
[3] https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8408
[4] https://www.qualys.com/2022/01/25/cve-2021-4034/pwnkit.txt
[5] https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/176
[6] https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=execve%5C+*%5C%28%5B%5E%2C%5D%2B%2C+*NULL&literal=0
[7] https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=execlp%3F%5Cs*%5C%28%5B%5E%2C%5D%2B%2C%5Cs*NULL&literal=0
[8] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220131144352.GE16385@xsang-OptiPlex-9020/

Comment 1 Avinash Hanwate 2025-02-26 19:36:23 UTC
Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2025022629-CVE-2022-49264-ca90@gregkh/T


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