Memory safety / buffer overrun (missing string termination in AppArmor path handling)
Description
The commit fixes a memory-safety vulnerability in AppArmor path handling where a string buffer could overrun due to a missing string terminator when appending a trailing '/'. The underlying issue arose from replacing a deprecated strcpy without ensuring proper null termination, which could lead to a KASAN slab-out-of-bounds read/write in aa_dfa_match during path resolution (e.g., while mounting with AppArmor checks). The patch adds an explicit null terminator after inserting the trailing '/', ensuring the buffer remains properly terminated and preventing writes beyond the allocated 8KB slab. This directly mitigates the reported memory-safety bug observed in a KASAN trace and prevents potential memory corruption during path handling in AppArmor mounts.
Commit Details
Author: Daniel J Blueman
Date: 2026-03-27 11:58 UTC
Message:
apparmor: Fix string overrun due to missing termination
When booting Ubuntu 26.04 with Linux 7.0-rc4 on an ARM64 Qualcomm
Snapdragon X1 we see a string buffer overrun:
BUG: KASAN: slab-out-of-bounds in aa_dfa_match (security/apparmor/match.c:535)
Read of size 1 at addr ffff0008901cc000 by task snap-update-ns/2120
CPU: 5 UID: 60578 PID: 2120 Comm: snap-update-ns Not tainted 7.0.0-rc4+ #22 PREEMPTLAZY
Hardware name: LENOVO 83ED/LNVNB161216, BIOS NHCN60WW 09/11/2025
Call trace:
show_stack (arch/arm64/kernel/stacktrace.c:501) (C)
dump_stack_lvl (lib/dump_stack.c:122)
print_report (mm/kasan/report.c:379 mm/kasan/report.c:482)
kasan_report (mm/kasan/report.c:597)
__asan_report_load1_noabort (mm/kasan/report_generic.c:378)
aa_dfa_match (security/apparmor/match.c:535)
match_mnt_path_str (security/apparmor/mount.c:244 security/apparmor/mount.c:336)
match_mnt (security/apparmor/mount.c:371)
aa_bind_mount (security/apparmor/mount.c:447 (discriminator 4))
apparmor_sb_mount (security/apparmor/lsm.c:719 (discriminator 1))
security_sb_mount (security/security.c:1062 (discriminator 31))
path_mount (fs/namespace.c:4101)
__arm64_sys_mount (fs/namespace.c:4172 fs/namespace.c:4361 fs/namespace.c:4338 fs/namespace.c:4338)
invoke_syscall.constprop.0 (arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:35 arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:49)
el0_svc_common.constprop.0 (./include/linux/thread_info.h:142 (discriminator 2) arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:140 (discriminator 2))
do_el0_svc (arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:152)
el0_svc (arch/arm64/kernel/entry-common.c:80 arch/arm64/kernel/entry-common.c:725)
el0t_64_sync_handler (arch/arm64/kernel/entry-common.c:744)
el0t_64_sync (arch/arm64/kernel/entry.S:596)
Allocated by task 2120:
kasan_save_stack (mm/kasan/common.c:58)
kasan_save_track (./arch/arm64/include/asm/current.h:19 mm/kasan/common.c:70 mm/kasan/common.c:79)
kasan_save_alloc_info (mm/kasan/generic.c:571)
__kasan_kmalloc (mm/kasan/common.c:419)
__kmalloc_noprof (./include/linux/kasan.h:263 mm/slub.c:5260 mm/slub.c:5272)
aa_get_buffer (security/apparmor/lsm.c:2201)
aa_bind_mount (security/apparmor/mount.c:442)
apparmor_sb_mount (security/apparmor/lsm.c:719 (discriminator 1))
security_sb_mount (security/security.c:1062 (discriminator 31))
path_mount (fs/namespace.c:4101)
__arm64_sys_mount (fs/namespace.c:4172 fs/namespace.c:4361 fs/namespace.c:4338 fs/namespace.c:4338)
invoke_syscall.constprop.0 (arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:35 arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:49)
el0_svc_common.constprop.0 (./include/linux/thread_info.h:142 (discriminator 2) arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:140 (discriminator 2))
do_el0_svc (arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:152)
el0_svc (arch/arm64/kernel/entry-common.c:80 arch/arm64/kernel/entry-common.c:725)
el0t_64_sync_handler (arch/arm64/kernel/entry-common.c:744)
el0t_64_sync (arch/arm64/kernel/entry.S:596)
The buggy address belongs to the object at ffff0008901ca000
which belongs to the cache kmalloc-rnd-06-8k of size 8192
The buggy address is located 0 bytes to the right of
allocated 8192-byte region [ffff0008901ca000, ffff0008901cc000)
The buggy address belongs to the physical page:
page: refcount:0 mapcount:0 mapping:0000000000000000 index:0x0 pfn:0x9101c8
head: order:3 mapcount:0 entire_mapcount:0 nr_pages_mapped:-1 pincount:0
flags: 0x8000000000000040(head|zone=2)
page_type: f5(slab)
raw: 8000000000000040 ffff000800016c40 fffffdffe2d14e10 ffff000800015c70
raw: 0000000000000000 0000000800010001 00000000f5000000 0000000000000000
head: 8000000000000040 ffff000800016c40 fffffdffe2d14e10 ffff000800015c70
head: 0000000000000000 0000000800010001 00000000f5000000 0000000000000000
head: 8000000000000003 fffffdffe2407201 fffffdffffffffff 00000000ffffffff
head: ffffffffffffffff 0000000000000000 00000000ffffffff 0000000000000008
page dumped because: kasan: bad access detected
Memory state around the buggy address:
ffff0008901cbf00: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
ffff0008901cbf80: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
>ffff0008901cc000: fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc
^
ffff0008901cc080: fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc
ffff0008901cc100: fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc
This was introduced by previous incorrect conversion from strcpy(). Fix it
by adding the missing terminator.
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Reviewed-by: Georgia Garcia <georgia.garcia@canonical.com>
Signed-off-by: Daniel J Blueman <daniel@quora.org>
Fixes: 93d4dbdc8da0 ("apparmor: Replace deprecated strcpy in d_namespace_path")
Signed-off-by: John Johansen <john.johansen@canonical.com>
Triage Assessment
Vulnerability Type: Memory safety / Buffer overrun
Confidence: HIGH
Reasoning:
The commit addresses a buffer overrun risk by ensuring proper string termination when appending a '/' for directory paths in AppArmor path handling. The fix preserves termination and prevents writes beyond the buffer, directly mitigating a memory-safety vulnerability highlighted by a KASAN report.
Verification Assessment
Vulnerability Type: Memory safety / buffer overrun (missing string termination in AppArmor path handling)
Confidence: HIGH
Affected Versions: Linux 7.0-rc4 and 7.0-rc5 (pre-release 7.0 series); fixed in 7.0-rc6
Code Diff
diff --git a/security/apparmor/path.c b/security/apparmor/path.c
index 65a0ca5cc1bdda..2494e810153841 100644
--- a/security/apparmor/path.c
+++ b/security/apparmor/path.c
@@ -164,14 +164,16 @@ static int d_namespace_path(const struct path *path, char *buf, char **name,
}
out:
- /* Append "/" to directory paths, except for root "/" which
- * already ends in a slash.
+ /* Append "/" to directory paths and reterminate string, except for
+ * root "/" which already ends in a slash.
*/
if (!error && isdir) {
bool is_root = (*name)[0] == '/' && (*name)[1] == '\0';
- if (!is_root)
+ if (!is_root) {
buf[aa_g_path_max - 2] = '/';
+ buf[aa_g_path_max - 1] = '\0';
+ }
}
return error;