PhoneAPI: gate local admin on the connection, not the wire from (#11033)

* PhoneAPI: gate local admin on the connection, not the wire from

The lockdown admin check in handleToRadioPacket only ran when p.from == 0. from is
a client-supplied wire field, and MeshService::handleToRadio rewrites it to 0 before
AdminModule sees the packet. A client could therefore set from != 0 to skip the
!getAdminAuthorized() drop, then have the packet normalized back to a local-admin
identity and executed - unauthorized admin from an unauthorized connection.

Every packet in handleToRadioPacket already comes from the local connection, so
locality is a property of the connection, not of from. Move the decision into
classifyLocalAdminPacket(), which ignores from and keys only on the admin variant and
the connection's authorization: lockdown_auth is delivered inline, any other admin
from an unauthorized connection is dropped, authorized admin passes through.

The classifier is compiled unconditionally and unit-tested; the guarded caller (built
only in the nRF52 lockdown config) calls it. Test: an unauthorized connection's
ADMIN_APP packet with from != 0 is classified DropUnauthorized.

* PhoneAPI: wipe the encoded lockdown passphrase, shorten comments

---------

Co-authored-by: Ben Meadors <benmmeadors@gmail.com>
This commit is contained in:
Thomas GöttgensandBen Meadors authored and GitHub committed 2026-07-17 05:21:32 -05:00
1 parent ed3afdbc61
commit a7fde715c6
3 files changed
+121 -18

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+38 -18
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@@ -1697,6 +1697,19 @@ bool PhoneAPI::wasSeenRecently(uint32_t id)
return false;
}
PhoneAPI::LocalAdminGate PhoneAPI::classifyLocalAdminPacket(const meshtastic_MeshPacket &p, bool adminAuthorized,
meshtastic_AdminMessage &outAdmin)
{
if (p.which_payload_variant != meshtastic_MeshPacket_decoded_tag || p.decoded.portnum != meshtastic_PortNum_ADMIN_APP)
return LocalAdminGate::NotAdmin;
outAdmin = meshtastic_AdminMessage_init_zero;
if (!pb_decode_from_bytes(p.decoded.payload.bytes, p.decoded.payload.size, &meshtastic_AdminMessage_msg, &outAdmin))
return LocalAdminGate::NotAdmin; // undecodable: let the normal reject path respond
if (outAdmin.which_payload_variant == meshtastic_AdminMessage_lockdown_auth_tag)
return LocalAdminGate::LockdownAuth; // the passphrase itself; authenticate regardless of prior state
return adminAuthorized ? LocalAdminGate::AuthorizedPassThrough : LocalAdminGate::DropUnauthorized;
}
/**
* Handle a packet that the phone wants us to send. It is our responsibility to free the packet to the pool
*/
@@ -1721,26 +1734,33 @@ bool PhoneAPI::handleToRadioPacket(meshtastic_MeshPacket &p)
// the gate here closes that race and covers H6/H7 from the
// audit: get_config_request and set_config from unauthed
// clients no longer reach AdminModule at all.
if (p.from == 0 && p.which_payload_variant == meshtastic_MeshPacket_decoded_tag &&
p.decoded.portnum == meshtastic_PortNum_ADMIN_APP) {
// Gate on the connection, not the wire `from`, which a client can forge to a non-zero value to
// bypass the check before MeshService normalizes it back to a local identity.
// Scope the decoded admin message: it holds the plaintext passphrase, so bound its lifetime.
{
meshtastic_AdminMessage admin = meshtastic_AdminMessage_init_zero;
if (pb_decode_from_bytes(p.decoded.payload.bytes, p.decoded.payload.size, &meshtastic_AdminMessage_msg, &admin)) {
if (admin.which_payload_variant == meshtastic_AdminMessage_lockdown_auth_tag) {
handleLockdownAuthInline(admin.lockdown_auth);
// Wipe the decoded passphrase scratch - the byte array in
// p.decoded.payload.bytes is wiped by handleLockdownAuthInline.
volatile uint8_t *adminVol = const_cast<volatile uint8_t *>(admin.lockdown_auth.passphrase.bytes);
for (size_t i = 0; i < sizeof(admin.lockdown_auth.passphrase.bytes); i++)
adminVol[i] = 0;
return true;
}
if (!getAdminAuthorized()) {
LOG_WARN("Lockdown: dropping admin payload variant=%d from unauthorized connection", admin.which_payload_variant);
return false;
}
switch (classifyLocalAdminPacket(p, getAdminAuthorized(), admin)) {
case LocalAdminGate::LockdownAuth: {
handleLockdownAuthInline(admin.lockdown_auth);
// The encoded wipe is the security-critical one: nothing else clears the passphrase from
// the packet buffer. handleLockdownAuthInline already zeroes the decoded copy up to its
// size; re-zero the full scratch capacity here as defense in depth.
volatile uint8_t *adminVol = const_cast<volatile uint8_t *>(admin.lockdown_auth.passphrase.bytes);
for (size_t i = 0; i < sizeof(admin.lockdown_auth.passphrase.bytes); i++)
adminVol[i] = 0;
volatile uint8_t *encodedVol = const_cast<volatile uint8_t *>(p.decoded.payload.bytes);
for (size_t i = 0; i < sizeof(p.decoded.payload.bytes); i++)
encodedVol[i] = 0;
p.decoded.payload.size = 0; // keep the length consistent with the wiped buffer
return true;
}
case LocalAdminGate::DropUnauthorized:
LOG_WARN("Lockdown: dropping admin payload variant=%d from unauthorized connection", admin.which_payload_variant);
return false;
case LocalAdminGate::NotAdmin:
case LocalAdminGate::AuthorizedPassThrough:
break; // normal handling
}
// pb_decode failure: fall through to normal handling so the
// regular Router/AdminModule reject path can respond.
}
#endif