There is a known problem with some versions of gcc29 on x86 Solaris where a program linked with the OpenSSL libcrypto will segfault in "_init".
Every object module consists of segment fractions which are merged by the link-editer. For example, .text fractions from all *.o files are concatenated to form the program .text segment.
Every such fraction is allowed to specify alignment in the resulting image and the link-editer is
29And with the Sun C compiler also, but OpenSSL currently does not use assembler optimizations with that compiler.
expected to align it accordingly. When different fractions specify different alignments the link-editer pads the previous fragment until the alignment requirement for the currently processed fragment is met. The value used for padding varies by implementation. Solaris ld uses a value of zero, which means that for executable segments machine code is padded with zeros. That means that if the processor attempts to interpret that zero padding, it would execute a series of 'add %al,
(%eax)' instructions. Depending on the value in register %eax that instruction might work or it might incur a segmentation violation. But, even if the instruction does not segfault it can cause unpredicted behavior later on. A better choice of padding value would be one which maps into an instruction which has no effect on the processor state. In x86 context 0x90 (the NOP machine instruction) would be an appropriate value.
Why is only the .init segment is affected and not .text? Because .text fragments contain either complete functions and padding zeros are preceded by flow transfer instructions, such as return or branch), or code fragments that never complete (e.g. calling "exit this process" system call). In other words padding is never executed in .text segments. The .init fragments on the other hand
contain pure code and are concatenated to form a linear stream of machine code. The padding values are therefore executed as machine instructions and non-NOP padding is bound to have undesired side effects such as segmentation violation.
Andy Polyakov has prepared a patch of sorts to address this issue
(http://www.openssl.org/~appro/values.c). This “patch”, a single file which is both a shell script and a C source file, modifies the Solaris gcc development environment only, not the OpenSSL code. On Solaris linking with libc requires linking with an object module which instantiates the
_lib_version constant. This object module is commonly provided by Sun and is linked first prior to crtbegin.o. The patch procedure strategically places a replacement module30 on the gcc library search path. But in addition to _lib_version the replacement module contains an .init snippet, which simply checks if the value following the snippet code is zero (i.e., the troublesome padding) or not and conditionally skips over or executes it.
The alignment of this replacement module .init fragment and the OpenSSL .init fragments is chosen carefully to work with both older and newer versions of gcc. If OpenSSL .init fragments were not aligned the way they are, then padding following the last one would cause the problem with older versions of gcc. Lack of replacement module padding preceding the first OpenSSL .init fragment would cause the problem with newer versions of gcc. The patch addresses both older and newer gcc versions.
Note the end-user does not need to patch anything to run the linked application. Replacement
modules are linked statically (just like the original ones) into either application or shared object code.
30The values.c patch actually installs several files with names of the form values-X?.o. Which of these files is referenced depended on the compiler options. For example, “cc -Xc ...” references values-Xc.o, “, “cc -Xt ...” references Xt.o, and gcc references Xc.o if -ansi is specified and values-Xa.o otherwise.
The gcc installation modifications can be reverted by removing the files “values-X*.o” from the directory containing libgcc.a. The location of that directory can be obtained by executing “gcc
-print-libgcc-file-name .
Appendix G Restrictions on the Export of Cryptography
Government restrictions and regulations on the use, acquisition, and distribution of cryptographic products are a matter of concern for some potential users.
In the United States the current export regulations appear to more or less leave open source alone, except for a reporting requirement to the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the U.S.
Department of Commerce; see http://bxa.doc.gov/Encryption/pubavailencsourcecodenofify.html.
When in doubt consultation with legal experts would be appropriate. The E-mail message the primary author of this document sent was:
To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Subject: TSU NOTIFICATION
SUBMISSION TYPE: TSU
SUBMITTED BY: Steve Marquess
SUBMITTED FOR: Veridical Systems, Inc.
POINT OF CONTACT: Steve Marquess PHONE and/or FAX: 301-831-8447 MANUFACTURER: N/A
PRODUCT NAME/MODEL #: OpenSSL ECCN: 5D002
NOTIFICATION: http://cvs.openssl.org/dir
Employee(s) of Veridical Systems, Inc. are participating in the development of the freely available open source OpenSSL product by providing feedback on new releases, by requesting new features, and by correspondence either to the developer and user mailing lists or directly with the core developers. This correspondence may include suggested source code fragments or patches. All versions of any such contributions incorporated in any of the OpenSSL software will be publicly accessible at http://cvs.openssl.org/dir.
No response was received (or expected).
Other links of interest:
http://bxa.doc.gov/Encryption/ChecklistInstr.htm