When booting the x86 kernel via EFI using the LoadImage/StartImage boot
services [as opposed to the deprecated EFI handover protocol], the setup
header is taken from the image directly, and given that EFI's LoadImage
has no Linux/x86 specific knowledge regarding struct bootparams or
struct setup_header, any absolute addresses in the setup header must
originate from the file and not from a prior loading stage.
Since we cannot generally predict where LoadImage() decides to load an
image (*), such absolute addresses must be treated as suspect: even if a
prior boot stage intended to make them point somewhere inside the
[signed] image, there is no way to validate that, and if they point at
an arbitrary location in memory, the setup_data nodes will not be
covered by any signatures or TPM measurements either, and could be made
to contain an arbitrary sequence of SETUP_xxx nodes, which could
interfere quite badly with the early x86 boot sequence.
(*) Note that, while LoadImage() does take a buffer/size tuple in
addition to a device path, which can be used to provide the image
contents directly, it will re-allocate such images, as the memory
footprint of an image is generally larger than the PE/COFF file
representation.
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org> # v5.10+
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20220904165321.1140894-1-Jason@zx2c4.com/
Signed-off-by: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>
Acked-by: Jason A. Donenfeld <Jason@zx2c4.com>