VOGONS


First post, by Kahenraz

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l33t

I'm running Spelling Jungle / Yobi's Basic Spelling Tricks in DOSBox and it's crashing when CPU core is set to "auto" when using the -forcescaler option. Manually setting the core to either "normal" or "dynamic" does not cause a crash. However, this may not be consistent. I believe it was still crashing with "normal" until I rebooted-- I'm not entirely sure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling_Jungle

$ dosbox -forcescaler advmame2x -noconsole -exit -conf config -c exit
DOSBox version 0.74-3
Copyright 2002-2019 DOSBox Team, published under GNU GPL.
---
CONFIG:Loading primary settings from config file config
MIXER:Got different values from SDL: freq 44100, blocksize 512
ALSA:Can't subscribe to MIDI port (65:0) nor (17:0)
MIDI:Opened device:none
Setting excute permission on the code cache has failed
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

This makes SELinux very unhappy:

SELinux is preventing dosbox from using the execheap access on a process.

***** Plugin allow_execheap (53.1 confidence) suggests ********************

If you do not think dosbox should need to map heap memory that is both writable and executable.
Then you need to report a bug. This is a potentially dangerous access.
Do
contact your security administrator and report this issue.

***** Plugin catchall_boolean (42.6 confidence) suggests ******************

If you want to allow selinuxuser to execheap
Then you must tell SELinux about this by enabling the 'selinuxuser_execheap' boolean.

Do
setsebool -P selinuxuser_execheap 1

***** Plugin catchall (5.76 confidence) suggests **************************

If you believe that dosbox should be allowed execheap access on processes labeled unconfined_t by default.
Then you should report this as a bug.
You can generate a local policy module to allow this access.
Do
allow this access for now by executing:
# ausearch -c 'dosbox' --raw | audit2allow -M my-dosbox
# semodule -X 300 -i my-dosbox.pp

Additional Information:
Source Context unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1
023
Target Context unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1
023
Target Objects Unknown [ process ]
Source dosbox
Source Path dosbox
Port <Unknown>
Host hpenvy13m
Source RPM Packages
Target RPM Packages
Policy RPM selinux-policy-3.14.3-43.fc30.noarch
Selinux Enabled True
Policy Type targeted
Enforcing Mode Enforcing
Host Name hpenvy13m
Platform Linux hpenvy13m 5.2.9-200.fc30.x86_64 #1 SMP Fri
Aug 16 21:37:45 UTC 2019 x86_64 x86_64
Alert Count 11
First Seen 2019-09-01 13:30:01 EDT
Last Seen 2019-09-01 14:13:35 EDT
Local ID 6127a617-2a1d-4794-9c8d-e669685983ed

Raw Audit Messages
type=AVC msg=audit(1567361615.991:767): avc: denied { execheap } for pid=14106 comm="dosbox" scontext=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 tcontext=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 tclass=process permissive=0


Hash: dosbox,unconfined_t,unconfined_t,process,execheap

Out of curiosity, I ran it as root to bypass the policy and my system immediately locked up after displaying the game splash screen. On the plus side, it scaled correctly for the first frame.

This affects my Ryzen 7 2700U laptop running Fedora 30 x86_64. The exact same options work on my other laptop running an old Intel netbook processor and Fedora i686.

Running this game is a little bit more complicated as it has to first load Windows 3.1 and then launch the game.

The game requires 8-bit color mode, if that makes a difference.

Reply 1 of 6, by jmarsh

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That error would happen for either core=auto or core=dynamic regardless of any other settings. It's not heap corruption, it is the OS not allowing the dynamic core to map memory as both writable and executable.

Reply 2 of 6, by DosFreak

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jmarsh posted about SELINUX and DOSBox earlier this year:
dynrec vs. secure platforms - opinions wanted

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Make your games work offline

Reply 3 of 6, by Kahenraz

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I can confirm that DOSBox runs fine with core=dynamic. Auto only becomes a problem when mixed with the -forcescaler option.

Because it's dynamic, will I instead encounter a problem at runtime?

Reply 5 of 6, by Kahenraz

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I can confirm that disabling SELinux stops the crash. I don't understand why setting CPU to dynamic instead of auto allows me to use the scaler without crashing or setting it to auto with the scaler off also allows it to run without crashing.

In my case I need core=dynamic and -forcescaler to cause the crash.