CVE-2021-47517

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ethtool: do not perform operations on net devices being unregistered

There is a short period between a net device starts to be unregistered and when it is actually gone. In that time frame ethtool operations could still be performed, which might end up in unwanted or undefined behaviours[1].

Do not allow ethtool operations after a net device starts its unregistration. This patch targets the netlink part as the ioctl one isnt affected: the reference to the net device is taken and the operation is executed within an rtnl lock section and the net device wont be found after unregister.

[1] For example adding Tx queues after unregister ends up in NULL pointer exceptions and UaFs, such as:

  BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in kobject_get+0x14/0x90
  Read of size 1 at addr ffff88801961248c by task ethtool/755

  CPU: 0 PID: 755 Comm: ethtool Not tainted 5.15.0-rc6+ #778
  Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.14.0-4.fc34 04/014
  Call Trace:
   dump_stack_lvl+0x57/0x72
   print_address_description.constprop.0+0x1f/0x140
   kasan_report.cold+0x7f/0x11b
   kobject_get+0x14/0x90
   kobject_add_internal+0x3d1/0x450
   kobject_init_and_add+0xba/0xf0
   netdev_queue_update_kobjects+0xcf/0x200
   netif_set_real_num_tx_queues+0xb4/0x310
   veth_set_channels+0x1c3/0x550
   ethnl_set_channels+0x524/0x610

Weakness

Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code.

Affected Software

Extended Description

The use of previously-freed memory can have any number of adverse consequences, ranging from the corruption of valid data to the execution of arbitrary code, depending on the instantiation and timing of the flaw. The simplest way data corruption may occur involves the system’s reuse of the freed memory. Use-after-free errors have two common and sometimes overlapping causes:

In this scenario, the memory in question is allocated to another pointer validly at some point after it has been freed. The original pointer to the freed memory is used again and points to somewhere within the new allocation. As the data is changed, it corrupts the validly used memory; this induces undefined behavior in the process. If the newly allocated data happens to hold a class, in C++ for example, various function pointers may be scattered within the heap data. If one of these function pointers is overwritten with an address to valid shellcode, execution of arbitrary code can be achieved.

Potential Mitigations

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7c26da3be1e9843a15b5318f90db8a564479d2ac
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/cfd719f04267108f5f5bf802b9d7de69e99a99f9
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/dde91ccfa25fd58f64c397d91b81a4b393100ffa
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7c26da3be1e9843a15b5318f90db8a564479d2ac
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/cfd719f04267108f5f5bf802b9d7de69e99a99f9
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/dde91ccfa25fd58f64c397d91b81a4b393100ffa