Question

Edit: Title changed, as @Gunner pointed out that this is not a buffer overflow.

In reading user input from stdin with NR_read in Linux 64-bit Intel assembly, I wonder how can I avoid that the input that does not fit in the input buffer being sent to Linux shell eg. bash? For example in this example program I have defined an input buffer of 255 bytes (the size of the buffer can be whatever >= 1). The rest of an input longer than 255 bytes is sent to bash (if running from bash) and and this is obviously a serious vulnerability. How should input be read in Linux 64-bit assembly to avoid this vulnerability?

Here’s my code:

[bits 64]

section .text
global _start

; can be compiled eg. with nasm or yasm.
; nasm:
; nasm -f elf64 read_stdin_64.asm; ld read_stdin_64.o -o read_stdin_64
; yasm:
; yasm -f elf64 -m amd64 read_stdin_64.asm -o read_stdin_64.o; ld read_stdin_64.o -o read_stdin_64

NR_read     equ 0
NR_exit     equ 60

STDIN       equ 1

; input:
; rax   number of syscall
; rdi   parameter 1
; rsi   parameter 2
; rdx   parameter 3
; r10   parameter 4
; r8    parameter 5
; r9    parameter 6
;
; output:
; rax   syscall's output
@do_syscall:
    push    rcx
    push    r11
    syscall      ; 64-bit syscall, overwrites rcx and r11
    pop     r11  ; syscall's return value in rax
    pop     rcx
    ret

@read_stdin:
    push    rdi
    push    rsi
    push    rdx
    mov     rdi,STDIN                ; file handle to read. STDIN = 1.
    lea     rsi,[input_buffer]
    mov     rdx,input_buffer_length  ; length of string
    mov     rax,NR_read              ; number of syscall (0)
    call    @do_syscall
    sub     rax,1                    ; get the number of writable characters.
    pop     rdx
    pop     rsi
    pop     rdi
    ret

_start:     ; linker entry point
    call    @read_stdin

@end_program:
    xor     rdi,rdi
    mov     rax,NR_exit  ; number of syscall (60)
    syscall

section .data

input_buffer         times 255 db 0
input_buffer_length  equ $-input_buffer

Answer 1

It is not a buffer overflow as others have stated. I wrote a tutorial on reading from the terminal in Linux which also shows how to deal with this issue. It uses 32-bit Int 0x80, but you can easily change it to fit your needs.

http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/topic/286248-nasm-linux-terminal-inputoutput-wint-80h/