How mmap with NULL addr works? - c

It is specified that when using mmap with NULL addr, the kernel chooses the (page-aligned) address at which to create the mapping:
mmap() creates a new mapping in the virtual address space of the
calling process. The starting address for the new mapping is
specified in addr. The length argument specifies the length of the
mapping (which must be greater than 0). If addr is NULL, then the kernel chooses the (page-aligned) address
at which to create the mapping; this is the most portable method of
creating a new mapping.
Supposing I have the code below :
void (*x)(void);
void (*y)(void);
x=mmap(NULL, 0x500, PROT..., FLAGS..., FD..., 0);
y=mmap(NULL, 0x500, PROT..., FLAGS..., FD..., 0);
Does it means that y will follow just after x ?
Thanks.

No, it does not say anything about the relative positioning of the mappings so you can't make any assumptions about it. Treat each mapping as completely separate from all others.

Related

How do I use dma_alloc_attr() with DMA_ATTR_NO_KERNEL_MAPPING?

I want to use DMA_ATTR_NO_KERNEL_MAPPING for memory allocation. According to the kernel documentation, I have to use dma_mmap_attrs(), but it requires struct vm_area_struct as one of its argument. How can I use it?
dma_addr_t phys;
void *virt;
void *tmp_virt;
struct vm_area_struct *vma;
pr_debug("pmap: cma: request to alloc %s for size 0x%08x\n",
info->name, info->size);
if(strcmp(info->name,"video") == 0)
{
pr_debug("video allocation.....\n");
tmp_virt = dma_alloc_attrs(pmap_device, info->size, &phys, GFP_KERNEL,
DMA_ATTR_NO_KERNEL_MAPPING | DMA_ATTR_FORCE_CONTIGUOUS);
virt = dma_mmap_attrs(pmap_device, vma, tmp_virt, &phys, info->size,
DMA_ATTR_NO_KERNEL_MAPPING | DMA_ATTR_FORCE_CONTIGUOUS);
}
I am requesting memory allocation using the ioctl call from user space, and then a kernel panic occurs with a system reboot.
How do I use DMA_ATTR_NO_KERNEL_MAPPING for user space allocation using ioctl?
In my sample driver code I am declaring struct vm_area_struct *vma. Is that correct?
if you used DMA_ATTR_NO_KERNEL_MAPPING in dma_alloc_attr(), it means that you dont want virtual mapping for the allocated area. DMA_ATTR_NO_KERNEL_MAPPING only used again to mapped with user space memory, no direct api to mapped it with kernel space memory.
if user space want to mapped it virtually, below are the options.
Use dma_mmap_attr() in driver you have to used .map = map_user_space_function()
and then use dma_mmap_attr() in that function, it will mapped to user space virtual memory.
Use get_vm_area() in driver and use dma_mmap_attr() in which used the vm_area return by get_vm_area().

Sequential access to hugepages in kernel driver

I'm working in a driver that uses a buffer backed by hugepages, and I'm finding some problems with the sequentality of the hugepages.
In userspace, the program allocates a big buffer backed by hugepages using the mmap syscall. The buffer is then communicated to the driver through a ioctl call. The driver uses the get_user_pages function to get the memory address of that buffer.
This works perfectly with a buffer size of 1 GB (1 hugepage). get_user_pages returns a lot of pages (HUGE_PAGE_SIZE / PAGE_SIZE) but they're all contigous, so there's no problem. I just grab the address of the first page with page_address and work with that. The driver can also map that buffer back to userspace with remap_pfn_range when another program does a mmap call on the char device.
However, things get complicated when the buffer is backed by more than one hugepage. It seems that the kernel can return a buffer backed by non-sequential hugepages. I.e, if the hugepage pool's layout is something like this
+------+------+------+------+
| HP 1 | HP 2 | HP 3 | HP 4 |
+------+------+------+------+
, a request for a hugepage-backed buffer could be fulfilled by reserving HP1 and HP4, or maybe HP3 and then HP2. That means that when I get the pages with get_user_pages in the last case, the address of page 0 is actually 1 GB after the address of page 262.144 (the next hugepage's head).
Is there any way to sequentalize access to those pages? I tried reordering the addresses to find the lower one so I can use the whole buffer (e.g., if kernel gives me a buffer backed by HP3, HP2 I use as base address the one of HP2), but it seems that would scramble the data in userspace (offset 0 in that reordered buffer is maybe offset 1GB in the userspace buffer).
TL;DR: Given >1 unordered hugepages, is there any way to access them sequentially in a Linux kernel driver?
By the way, I'm working on a Linux machine with 3.8.0-29-generic kernel.
Using the function suggested by CL, vm_map_ram, I was able to remap the memory so it can be accesed sequentially, independently of the number of hugepages mapped. I leave the code here (error control not included) in case it helps anyone.
struct page** pages;
int retval;
unsigned long npages;
unsigned long buffer_start = (unsigned long) huge->addr; // Address from user-space map.
void* remapped;
npages = 1 + ((bufsize- 1) / PAGE_SIZE);
pages = vmalloc(npages * sizeof(struct page *));
down_read(&current->mm->mmap_sem);
retval = get_user_pages(current, current->mm, buffer_start, npages,
1 /* Write enable */, 0 /* Force */, pages, NULL);
up_read(&current->mm->mmap_sem);
nid = page_to_nid(pages[0]); // Remap on the same NUMA node.
remapped = vm_map_ram(pages, npages, nid, PAGE_KERNEL);
// Do work on remapped.

Network Programming in C for name of running process for established connection

I am new to C network programming. I am trying to code a patch for my conky to display something like "netstat -pan --inet". Conky's inbuilt tcp_mon to not include process name.
Initially I did this using netstat and awk but my script got a performance hit using this approach. So I am trying to code it in C directly. The output from netstat looks something like this
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program name
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:17500 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1042/dropbox
tcp 0 0 192.168.0.1:3333 24.244.4.104:2222 ESTABLISHED 1225/chrome
I am interested in displaying the last column "PID/Program" I look at the sockets library but I did not come across anything regarding the process name or its pid. I am on Archlinux by the way
So my questions are
1) Am I looking at the right place ? If not, where ?
2) Is there a better way of doing this ?
At least when using a recent Linux kernel it is possible to read out a process' name (as defined by a comment to the OP) using prctl():
#include <sys/prctl.h>
#include <stdio.h> /* for perror() */
...
char [17] = proc_name = {0}; /* the buffer provided shall at least be 16+1 bytes long */
if (-1 == prctl(PR_GET_NAME, proc_name, ...))
perror("prctl(PR_GET_NAME, ...)");
One should be aware that a maximum of 16 bytes is returned, and that in this case no trailing 0-termination will be added. So initialising the character array to passed to prctl()to all 0 is a good idea.
It is also possible to set this "name" by doing:
char [17] = proc_name = "new name"; /* The name will be truncated to 16 bytes */
if (-1 == prctl(PR_SET_NAME, proc_name, ...))
perror("prctl(PR_SET_NAME, ...)");
The relevant excerpts from prctl()'s man pages are:
PR_SET_NAME (since Linux 2.6.9)
Set the process name for the calling process, using the value in the location pointed to by (char *) arg2. The name can be up to 16 bytes long, and should be null-terminated if it contains fewer bytes.
PR_GET_NAME (since Linux 2.6.11)
Return the process name for the calling process, in the buffer pointed to by (char *) arg2. The buffer should allow space for up to 16 bytes; the returned string will be null-terminated if it is shorter than that.
Please note that the "process name"-value as described above is different form the command line for a process. The latter can be found in /proc/<pid>/cmdline.
It is stored in there as 0-terminated character array.
A convenient way to read out /proc is to use the tool kit provided by PROCPS.
Update:
After taking a look at netstat's sources it seem it takes the process's name from /proc/<pid>/cmdline. The relevant pids come from scanning /proc/<pid>/fd looking for matches to socket:*.
assuming Linux, I think you've got to go into /proc/*/fd and poke around

Linux is not allowing me to access a fixed region of memory

I have some data stored in a FLASH memory that I need to access with C pointers to be able to make a non-Linux graphics driver work (I think this requirement is DMA related, not sure). Calling read works, but I don't want to have intermediate RAM buffers between the FLASH and the non-Linux driver.
However, just creating a pointer and storing the address that I want on it is making Linux emit an exception about invalid access on me.
void *ptr = 0xdeadbeef;
int a = *ptr; // invalid access!
What am I missing here? And could someone point me to a material to make this concepts clear for me?
I'm reading about mmap but I'm not sure that this is what I need.
The problem you have is that linux runs your program in a virtual address space. So every address you use directly in the code (like 0xdeadbeef) is a virtual address that gets translated by the memory management unit into a physical address which is not necessarily the same as your virtual address. This allows easy separation of multiple independent processes and other stuff like paging, etc.
The problem is now, that in your case no physical address is mapped to the virtual address 0xdeadbeef causing the kernel to abort execution.
The call mmap you already found asks the kernel to assign a specific file (from a specific offset) to a virtual address of your process. Note that the returning address of mmap could be a completely different address. So don't make any assumptions about the virtual address you get.
Therefore there are examples with mmap and /dev/mem out there where the offset for the memory device is the physical address. After the kernel was able to assign the file from the offset you gave to a virtual address of your process you can access the memory area asif it were a direct access.
After you don't need the area anymore don't forget to munmap the area. Otherwise you'll cause something similar to a memory leak.
One problem with the /dev/mem method is that the user running the process needs access to this device. This could introduce a security issue (e.g. Samsung recently introduced such a security hole in their hand held devices)
A more secure way is the way described in a article i found (The Userspace I/O HOWTO) as you still have control about the memory areas accessable by the user's process.
You need to access the memory differently. Basically you need to open /dev/mem and use mmap(). (as you suggested). Simple example:
int openMem(unsigned int address, unsigned int size)
{
int mmapFD;
int page_size;
unsigned int page_start_address;
/* Minimum page size for the mmapped region. */
mask = size - 1;
/* Get the page size. */
page_size = (int) sysconf(_SC_PAGE_SIZE);
/* We have to map shared memory to beginning of memory page so adjust
* memory address accordingly. */
page_start_address = address - (address % page_size);
/* Open the file that will be mapped. */
if((mmapFD = open("/dev/mem", (O_RDWR | O_SYNC))) == -1)
{
printf("Opening shared memory device failed\n");
return -1;
}
mmap_base_address = mmap(0, size, (PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE), MAP_SHARED, mmapFD, (off_t)page_start_address & ~mask);
if(mmap_base_address == MAP_FAILED)
{
printf("Mapping memory failed\n");
return -1;
}
return 0;
}
unsigned int *getAddress(unsigned int address)
{
unsigned int log_address;
log_address = (int)((off_t)mmap_base_address + ((off_t)address & mask));
return (unsigned int*)log_address;
}
...
result = openMem(address, 0x10000);
if (result < 0)
return result;
target_address = getValue(address);
*(unsigned int*)target_address = value;
This would set "value" to "address".
You need to call ioremap - something like:
void *myaddr = ioremap(0xdeadbeef, size);
where size is the size of your memory region. You probably want to use a page-aligned address for the first argument, e.g. 0xdeadb000 - but I expect your actual device isn't at "0xdeadbeef" anyways.
Edit: The call to ioremap must be done from a driver!

How to get a specific memory address using C

For my bachelor thesis i want to visualize the data remanence of memory and how it persists after rebooting a system.
I had the simple idea to mmap a picture to memory, shut down my computer, wait x seconds, boot the computer and see if the picture is still there.
int mmap_lena(void)
{
FILE *fd = NULL;
size_t lena_size;
void *addr = NULL;
fd = fopen("lena.png", "r");
fseek(fd, 0, SEEK_END);
lena_size = ftell(fd);
addr = mmap((void *) 0x12345678, (size_t) lena_size, (int) PROT_READ, (int) MAP_SHARED, (int) fileno(fd), (off_t) 0);
fprintf(stdout, "Addr = %p\n", addr);
munmap((void *) addr, (size_t) lena_size);
fclose(fd);
fclose(fd_log);
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
I ommitted checking return values for clarities sake.
So after the mmap i tried to somehow get the address, but i usually end up with a segmentation fault as to my understanding the memory is protected by my operating system.
int fetch_lena(void)
{
FILE *fd = NULL;
FILE *fd_out = NULL;
size_t lenna_size;
FILE *addr = (FILE *) 0x12346000;
fd = fopen("lena.png", "r");
fd_out = fopen("lena_out.png", "rw");
fseek(fd, 0, SEEK_END);
lenna_size = ftell(fd);
// Segfault
fwrite((FILE *) addr, (size_t) 1, (size_t) lenna_size, (FILE *) fd_out);
fclose(fd);
fclose(fd_out);
return 0;
}
Please also note that i hard coded the adresses in this example, so whenever you run mmap_lena the value i use in fetch_lena could be wrong as the operating system takes the first parameter to mmap only as a hint (on my system it always defaults to 0x12346000 somehow).
If there is any trivial coding error i am sorry as my C skills have not fully developed.
I would like to now if there is any way to get to the data i want without implementing any malloc hooks or memory allocator hacks.
Thanks in advance,
David
One issue you have is that you are getting back a virtual address, not the physical address where the memory resides. Next time you boot, the mapping probably won't be the same.
This can definitly be done within a kernel module in Linux, but I don't think there is any sort of API in userspace you can use.
If you have permission ( and I assume you could be root on this machine if you are rebooting it ), then you can peek at /dev/mem to see the actual phyiscal layout. Maybe you should try sampling values, reboot, and see how many of those values persisted.
There is a similar project where a cold boot attack is demonstrated. The source code is available, maybe you can get some inspiration there.
However, AFAIR they read out the memory without loading an OS first and therefore do not have to mess with the OSs memory protection. Maybe you should try this too to avoid memory being overwritten or cleared by the OS after boot.
(Also check the video on the site, it's pretty impressive ;)
In the question Direct Memory Access in Linux we worked out most of the fundamentals needed to accomplish this. Note, mmap() is not the answer to this for exactly the reasons that were stated by others .. you need a real address, not virtual, which you can only get inside the kernel (or by writing a driver to relay one to userspace).
The simplest method would be to write a character device driver that can be read or written to, with an ioctl to give you a valid start or ending address. Again, if you want pointers on the memory management functions to use in the kernel, see the question that I've linked to .. most of it was worked out in the comments in the first (and accepted) answer.
Your test code looks odd
FILE *addr = (FILE *) 0x12346000;
fwrite((FILE *) fd_out, (size_t) 1,
(size_t) lenna_size, (FILE *) addr);
You can't just cast an integer to a FILE pointer and expect to get something sane.
Did you also switch the first and last argument to fwrite ? The last argument is supposed to be the FILE* to write to.
You probably want as little OS as possible for this purpose; the more software you load, the more chances of overwriting something you want to examine.
DOS might be a good bet; it uses < 640k of memory. If you don't load HIMEM and instead write your own (assembly required) routine to jump into pmode, copy a block of high memory into low memory, then jump back into real mode, you could write a mostly-real-mode program which can dump out the physical ram (minus however much the BIOS, DOS and your app use). It could dump it to a flash disc or something.
Of course the real problem may be that the BIOS clears the memory during POST.
I'm not familiar with Linux, but you'll likely need to write a device driver. Device drivers must have some way to convert virtual memory addresses to physical memory addresses for DMA purposes (DMA controllers only deal with physical memory addresses). You should be able to use those interfaces to deal directly with physical memory.
I don't say it's the lowest effort, but for completeness sake,
You can Compile a MMU-less Linux Kernel
And then you can have a blast as all addresses are real.
Note 1: You might still get errors if you access few hardware/bios mapped address spaces.
Note 2: You don't access memory using files in this case, you just assign an address to a pointer and read it's content.
int* pStart = (int*)0x600000;
int* pEnd = (int*)0x800000;
for(int* p = pStart; p < pEnd; ++p)
{
// do what you want with *p
}

Resources