openssh unix dev - Aug 2015 - Fix for CVE-2015-5600 can erroneously prevent logging in sometimes

Hello,

When testing a fix for CVE-2015-5600 based on the Ubuntu patch in
openssh-5.9 (
https://launchpadlibrarian.net/214490716/openssh_1%3A5.9p1-5ubuntu1.4_1%3A5.9p1-5ubuntu1.6.diff.gz
), I noticed that there was an issue with getting permission denied when
trying to log in lots of times with what should be valid credentials.

The symptom was when logging in with the command and sshd_config below I
would get permission denied sometimes and permission granted other times.
Upon investigating the reason for permission being denied was sshd
erroneously thinking "pam" had already been used as a login method on
the
first attempt to use it. This appeared to be related to the kbdinit_alloc
function in auth2_chall.c not initializing devices_done. Once I made the
following patch the issue went away:

@@ -130,6 +131,7 @@ kbdint_alloc(const char *devs)
        kbdintctxt->ctxt = NULL;
        kbdintctxt->device = NULL;
        kbdintctxt->nreq = 0;
+       kbdintctxt->devices_done = 0;

        return kbdintctxt;
 }

Since openssh uses xmalloc ( i.e. malloc or die ) to initialize data
structures, it seems that the issue is the struct not getting zero'ed out
at the start. I haven't taken the time to verify this in openssh-6.9 /
openssh-7.0, but it seems like since xmalloc / malloc is still in use that
it should still fail in the same manner.

These are the ssh command sshd_config that were in use when the issue was
happening. I'm not sure if something about them makes the issue more likely
to happen:
==ssh command:
ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o
ConnectTimeout=120 -o ServerAliveInterval=15 -m hmac-md5 -c aes256-ctr -e
\~ -oKexAlgorithms=diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1
<username>@<host>


sshd_config:
Protocol 2
Port 22
SyslogFacility AUTHPRIV
PasswordAuthentication no
ChallengeResponseAuthentication yes
UsePAM yes
MaxStartups 10:30:100
Subsystem sftp /usr/libexec/openssh/sftp-server
PermitEmptyPasswords yes
AllowTcpForwarding no
Banner /etc/issue
StrictModes yes
UsePrivilegeSeparation yes
Compression delayed
GatewayPorts no
GSSAPIAuthentication no
KerberosAuthentication no
LoginGraceTime 120
LogLevel DEBUG2
Ciphers
3des-cbc,aes128-cbc,aes128-ctr,aes192-cbc,aes192-ctr,aes256-cbc,aes256-ctr,arcfour,arcfour128,arcfour256,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc
KexAlgorithms
diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1,diffie-hellman-group14-sha1,diffie-hellman-group1-sha1
MACs hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,hmac-ripemd160,hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96
HostKey <removed rsa keypath>
HostKey <removed dsa keypath>

==
Is anyone else able to see this issue and verify that my fix is correct?
I've also filed this under Ubuntu as BUG#1485807

Thanks,

Ethan

On Mon, 17 Aug 2015, Ethan Rahn wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> When testing a fix for CVE-2015-5600 based on the Ubuntu patch in
> openssh-5.9 (
>
https://launchpadlibrarian.net/214490716/openssh_1%3A5.9p1-5ubuntu1.4_1%3A5.9p1-5ubuntu1.6.diff.gz
> ), I noticed that there was an issue with getting permission denied when
> trying to log in lots of times with what should be valid credentials.
> 
> The symptom was when logging in with the command and sshd_config below I
> would get permission denied sometimes and permission granted other times.
> Upon investigating the reason for permission being denied was sshd
> erroneously thinking "pam" had already been used as a login
method on the
> first attempt to use it. This appeared to be related to the kbdinit_alloc
> function in auth2_chall.c not initializing devices_done. Once I made the
> following patch the issue went away:
> 
> @@ -130,6 +131,7 @@ kbdint_alloc(const char *devs)
>         kbdintctxt->ctxt = NULL;
>         kbdintctxt->device = NULL;
>         kbdintctxt->nreq = 0;
> +       kbdintctxt->devices_done = 0;
> 
>         return kbdintctxt;
>  }
Your patch is needed for openssh <= 6.3. Newer versions have used calloc
to allocate kbdintctxt. Whoever backported the patch for 7.0 should have
checked to begin with.

-d