spender wrote:So I've taken a look at the vmlinux you sent, but I have some more questions.
I'll try and go slowly over those.
spender wrote: It's triggering on a NULL dereference of the created dentry's d_sb field, which shouldn't be possible (it's always set in __d_alloc()).
Have to skip what I understand only too vaguely, if at all, like the above.
spender wrote: Is the problem reproducible?
I'm willing to try and see if it is, however it broke at least another, old, Gentoo system that was on the SOHO at that time, so I have to thread carefully.
It broke it in the sense that it now gets shut down without much load, with just some minimally high loads.
That is exactly the problem that I had experienced previously on the now IPTV-online Gentoo system until, and at least for a while even after, I cloned it from scratch. The shutting down, under just above minimal loads, wouldn't go away, as I just said, even after cloning the master Gentoo system on it, possibly because something, through intrusion, was stored somewhere other than in filesystems (because I left none whatsoever of the old system data, I zeroed out all and any that can be dd-zeroed out, before cloning the master Gentoo system on it). The shutting down of that now IPTV-online system (and previously also with previous old Gentoo install that was my only IPTV-online system), I haven't yet checked if it still persists with the cloned new no-poetteringware Gentoo which is currently on it.
The old system on my back-then and also-now IPTV-online system (now it is a no-poetteringware system, so no-systemd no-dbus no-policykit no-polkit no-pulseaudio system)... back then it was a systemd-policykit-dbus-pulseaudio system, so at least prone to surveille-rootkits (if not already spyware by virtue of those mere programs)...
And so is the old system a potteringware one, on this other box which is now shutting down under some not high loads at all, and so it is unuseable for any, say, ffmpeg video processing (talking about the so called "obsolete" but in effect real FFmpeg), which can not be deployed on that system in full at all, because it triggers shutdowns, as does other heavier processing. Within minutes of starting ffmpeg processing of my videos, the system shuts down.
That system is some 200 days not updated system (that's how slowly I work in some areas), but never experienced stubborn shutdowns like now after this some kind of breakage that three days ago has occurred. It only got broken down, apparently, because it was connected to the SOHO and had the suspected rootkits (see above; I'm writing for not just the devs but for current and future users of grsecurity; be informed, gentle readers!).
So I'm willing to go through trying to reproduce the problems described, with 3.16.2, the current one, and with 3.16.3 kernel, but I have to thread carefully to not lose more of my systems. Because, judging by the effects, it must have been an intrusion.
I know what, say, memory errors from bad system RAM look like, I was able to understand it was those a few months ago, because I always check the sums when I move files, and I sometimes move lots of files, and pretty large files (such as, say, the dd-dumps that measure in tens of GB). An so I knew that it must have been RAM memory errors, back when I had those peculiar problems a few months ago, of very different kind than these described in this topic, because I saw that files didn't retain the same SHA256 sums, some of the many files just couldn't be copied with integrity. And without further ado I checked RAM memory with running sysresccd and that program, whatever the name, can't recall, mem86+ or somesuch, to be chosen at boot, and there were errors in RAM. Memory replaced, no more errors.
But I have to thread carefully now.
My only defence is what I call poor users' security and it consists of having clean backups and restoring the system partitions in the previous state. Which works but is so lengthy, everything all over again every time...
Let me just note that I don't see any apparent breakage in the other systems protected with grsecurity. Not even the Debian which was on-the-SOHO. This Debian that I write this on and with which I post to grsecurity forums is not that one, no, this one is strictly air-gapped-off from the SOHO. On this one I only experienced technically non-related, but socially, yes, related noise, or should I call it suspected peculiar attention, when I was connecting after I posted these recent posts in this topic, and especially I couldn't connect to sftp the (surely
) encrypted kernel file, the vmlinux to grsecurity devs for quite a while. My sftp'ing to my hoster of my domain
http://www.CroatiaFidelis.hr was simply blocked for a while.
The old systems, one extinct, the other still to replace, I mentioned to explain what happened, I don't think they deserve much thought otherwise.
spender wrote: What filesystem did the mkdir occur on? (e.g. NFS, ext3, etc)
I explained it was NFS, and I looked for the /var/log dir from the IPTV-online system before cloning clean system on it that I thought I stowed away, and I think I may have either misplaced it, or not having it at all, haven't been able to find it.
I will next look up the gradm-first-time-enabled master Gentoo dd-dumps, and will be able to tell more.
spender wrote: With what patch did you first experience the problem?
This is the first time I experience this problem. The patch is what Gentoo devs prepare, so it is was goes with the hardened sources that they do. I haven't looked into those and don't know what patch they use. I could try, gladly, and ask them. I think I will on Gentoo Forums...
Should I rather try and use the testing patches like I use on average once a month for my Debian boxes and then post the packages for other Debianers to download?
I believe I could be helpful with my reports either if I keep to stock Gentoo grsecurity hardened sources, as well as it I try and compile the kernel with the latest grsecurity testing patch myself... Can't decide, but it also depends what support I can muster for this issue on Gentoo Forums, because I will also, hopefully, post there (see this report around the string "social", in this very post, to understand that I might be censored; well I hope I won't be, but that was so very likely a tiny bit of censorship there; remember that while globally the NSA is bad enough in intrusion, but we have a very bad, though sometimes very stupid as well, tiny internet leviathan called UDBA in Croatia...).
spender wrote: Is it reproducible with the latest 3.16.3?
I'm also willing to try and report on that.
However, it's updating my local mirror that I then first need to do, to be able to update my Gentoo master machine.
I don't simply go online with it. I update it from my private mirror, as I described in:
Air-Gapped Gentoo Install, Tentative
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-987268.htmlspender wrote:Does the problem go away if you replace the occurrence of "dentry->d_sb->s_dev" in grsecurity/gracl.c with "dentry->d_inode->i_sb->s_dev"?
I found the file and that occurence. I'll test it and report it.
If it turns out I work too slowly, I report what I tested on the next 3.16.x kernel
Miroslav Rovis
Zagreb, Croatia
http://www.CroatiaFidelis.hr