RFR: 8296024: Usage of DIrectBuffer::address should be guarded

Per Minborg pminborg at openjdk.org
Mon Nov 21 11:40:23 UTC 2022


On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 11:29:07 GMT, Alan Bateman <alanb at openjdk.org> wrote:

>> This PR proposes the introduction of **guarding** of the use of `DirectBuffer::address` within the JDK. With the introduction of the Foreign Function and Memory access, it is possible to derive Buffer instances that are backed by native memory that, in turn, can be closed asynchronously by the user (and not only via a `Cleaner` when there is no other reference to the `Buffer` object). If another thread is invoking `MemorySession::close` while a thread is doing work using raw addresses, the outcome is undefined. This means the JVM might crash or even worse, silent modification of unrelated memory might occur. 
>> 
>> Design choices in this PR:
>> 
>> There is already a method `MemorySession::whileAlive` that takes a runnable and that will perform the provided action while acquiring the underlying` MemorySession` (if any). However, using this method entailed relatively large changes while converting larger/nested code segments into lambdas. This would also risk introducing lambda capturing. So, instead, a try-with-resources friendly access method was added. This made is more easy to add guarding and did not risk lambda capturing. Also, introducing lambdas in certain fundamental JDK classes might incur bootstrap problems.
>> 
>> The aforementioned TwR is using a "session acquisition" that is not used explicitly in the try block itself. This raises a warning that is suppressed using `@SuppressWarnings("try")`. In the future, we might be able to remove these suppressions by using the reserved variable name `_`. Another alternative was evaluated where a non-autocloseable resource was used. However, it became relatively complicated to guarantee that the session was always released and, at the same time, the existing 'final` block was always executed properly (as they both might throw exceptions). In the end, the proposed solution was much simpler and robust despite requiring a non-referenced TwR variable.
>> 
>> In some cases, where is is guaranteed that the backing memory session is non-closeable, we do not have to guard the use of `DirectBuffer::address`. These cases have been documented in the code.
>> 
>> On some occasions, a plurality of acquisitions are made. This would never lead to deadlocks as acquisitions are fundamentally concurrent counters and not resources that only one thread can "own".
>> 
>> I have added comments (and not javadocs) before the declaration of the non-public-api `DirectBuffer::address` method, that the use of the returned address needs to be guarded. It can be discussed if this is preferable or not.
>> 
>> This PR spawns several areas of responsibility and so, I expect more than one reviewer before promoting the PR.
>
> src/java.base/share/classes/sun/nio/ch/NioSocketImpl.java line 252:
> 
>> 250:         try {
>> 251:             // 'dst' is guaranteed not to be associated with a closeable session.
>> 252:             // Hence, there is no need for acquiring any session.
> 
> This comment is will be confusing to anyone reading this code. Is this really needed?

The reason for the comment is to make it clear why `DirectBuffer::address` can be used directly without guarding. This will also reduce the probability of unnecessary guarding being added in the future. However, if the consensus is that these comments just adds confusion, I am happy to remove them.

-------------

PR: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/11260


More information about the security-dev mailing list