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musl, glibc and ideal place for __stack_chk_fail_local
- From: Sergei Trofimovich <slyfox at gentoo dot org>
- To: musl at lists dot openwall dot com, libc-alpha at sourceware dot org, gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org, toolchain at gentoo dot org
- Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2020 10:53:31 +0000
- Subject: musl, glibc and ideal place for __stack_chk_fail_local
[ sending it to musl, glibc and gcc devel mailing list as we need
to build a consensus across the projects ]
To support smash stack protection gcc emits __stack_chk_fail
calls on all targets. On top of that gcc emits __stack_chk_fail_local
calls at least on i386 and powerpc:
https://bugs.gentoo.org/706210#c9
gcc can either use libssp/libssp_nonshared fallback or rely on libc
to provide __stack_chk_fail. Where ideally should gcc pick
__stack_chk_fail_local?
Looks like gcc/glibc and musl disagree on that:
- gcc: gcc either provides it from libssp_nonshared.a if libc has
no ssp support or pulls it from libc
- glibc: provides both __stack_chk_fail (deault) and
__stack_chk_fail_local (avoid PLT) symbols.
__stack_chk_fail_local comes from libc_nonshared.a and is
added to linker script as: $ cat /usr/lib/libc.so
OUTPUT_FORMAT(elf32-i386)
GROUP ( /lib/libc.so.6 /usr/lib/libc_nonshared.a AS_NEEDED ( /lib/ld-linux.so.2 ) )
- musl: provides only __stack_chk_fail (default) and
refuses to provide __stack_chk_fail_local:
https://www.openwall.com/lists/musl/2018/09/11/2
This makes musl effectively not support ssp on i386 and probably powerpc.
Currently gcc's assumption is that musl supports ssp symbols
from libc on all targets:
https://gcc.gnu.org/git/?p=gcc.git;a=blob;f=gcc/configure.ac;h=a7521ee99436a7c12159bdde0471dc66d3c4288e;hb=HEAD#l6079
6088 case "$target" in
6089 *-*-musl*)
6090 # All versions of musl provide stack protector
6091 gcc_cv_libc_provides_ssp=yes;;
Clearly that assumption is not correct as __stack_chk_fail_local
is not provided by musl and linking fails.
This sounds like a expectation mismatch between gcc and musl
of what it takes to implement an ssp interface.
What should we do to make it fixed long term and short term?
Long term:
Is there a vision of perfect end state agreed with gcc/glibc/musl
folk so we could just implement it? If there is none let's try to
form one.
My understanding of requirements for libc that exposes ssp support:
- __stack_chk_fail is implemented as a default symbol
- __stack_chk_fail_local is implemented as a local symbol to avoid PLT.
(Why is it important? To avoid use of potentially already broken stack?)
My understanding of possible perfect end state:
1. All libcs are required to somehow provide both __stack_chk_fail
and __stack_chk_fail_local: be it linker script, crt*.o files or an extra
libc_nonshared.a which gcc explicitly uses. Which one is best?
2. All libcs are required to provide only __stack_chk_fail and gcc always
provides __stack_chk_local from libgcc.a, or from new libgcc_ssp.a.
Evntually glibc drops it's __stack_chk_fail definition.
3. Your variant.
How do you gcc/glibc/musl folk see it? Once we decide I'll file bugs
against agreed projects. At least gcc could explicitly document the
interface.
Short term:
While the above is not addressed what should we do about musl in gcc?
Should gcc stop trying use musl on i386/powerpc here:
6088 case "$target" in
6089 *-*-musl*)
6090 # All versions of musl provide stack protector
6091 gcc_cv_libc_provides_ssp=yes;;
and fall back to libssp instead?
If it makes sense I'll create a bug against gcc.
Thanks!
--
Sergei