On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 00:27:37 +0100, Pascal Vincent wrote: > Hello, > > can you please indicate the current ATI mach64 DRI status. In fact, > http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/ATIMach64 page is not so clear so i > don't have the clear responses to - is mach64 is now secure ? this means > : > - is it now included in DRI and Mesa ? (the response seems to be yes) > - is mach64 module is now included in kernel ? (it seems not) > and if not why ? > > > Tks a lot for clarification > > Pascal
Pascal, I wrote that wiki page several years ago. I never got around to do it, because it involved a non trivial amount of work, and I approached in a naive way (trying to do too many things at the same time, instead of doing gradual changes). I need to reevaluate those statements, especially, concerning the security, and the best way to do it. The mach64 driver has three parts: one in Xorg, another in Mesa, another in the kernel. The unsafe part is the kernel part. And that's probably why is not included in the stock kernel. The reason the mach64 kernel module is unsafe is because it allows an OpenGL application to send malicious commands interspersed with the vertex data. Those malicious commands could give control over the physical memory, and therefore be used to obtain root privileges in theory. The mach64 kernel needs to be changed to verify and copy the data to private memory. Or at least unmap the memory from the client before verifying it and handing to the hardware. Or so I though... I need to verify how much control over the physical memory the client can actually get. As I'm unsure if it is just the memory in the AGP aperture, or the whole memory. If it is just the AGP memory, then there is no risk. José ------------------------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by: The Future of Linux Business White Paper from Novell. From the desktop to the data center, Linux is going mainstream. Let it simplify your IT future. http://altfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/8857-50307-18918-4 -- _______________________________________________ Dri-devel mailing list Dri-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
