CVE-2021-47599

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

btrfs: use latest_dev in btrfs_show_devname

The test case btrfs/238 reports the warning below:

WARNING: CPU: 3 PID: 481 at fs/btrfs/super.c:2509 btrfs_show_devname+0x104/0x1e8 [btrfs] CPU: 2 PID: 1 Comm: systemd Tainted: G W O 5.14.0-rc1-custom #72 Hardware name: QEMU QEMU Virtual Machine, BIOS 0.0.0 02/06/2015 Call trace: btrfs_show_devname+0x108/0x1b4 [btrfs] show_mountinfo+0x234/0x2c4 m_show+0x28/0x34 seq_read_iter+0x12c/0x3c4 vfs_read+0x29c/0x2c8 ksys_read+0x80/0xec __arm64_sys_read+0x28/0x34 invoke_syscall+0x50/0xf8 do_el0_svc+0x88/0x138 el0_svc+0x2c/0x8c el0t_64_sync_handler+0x84/0xe4 el0t_64_sync+0x198/0x19c

Reason: While btrfs_prepare_sprout() moves the fs_devices::devices into fs_devices::seed_list, the btrfs_show_devname() searches for the devices and found none, leading to the warning as in above.

Fix: latest_dev is updated according to the changes to the device list. That means we could use the latest_dev->name to show the device name in /proc/self/mounts, the pointer will be always valid as its assigned before the device is deleted from the list in remove or replace. The RCU protection is sufficient as the device structure is freed after synchronization.

Weakness

The product contains a code sequence that can run concurrently with other code, and the code sequence requires temporary, exclusive access to a shared resource, but a timing window exists in which the shared resource can be modified by another code sequence that is operating concurrently.

Affected Software

Extended Description

This can have security implications when the expected synchronization is in security-critical code, such as recording whether a user is authenticated or modifying important state information that should not be influenced by an outsider. A race condition occurs within concurrent environments, and is effectively a property of a code sequence. Depending on the context, a code sequence may be in the form of a function call, a small number of instructions, a series of program invocations, etc. A race condition violates these properties, which are closely related:

A race condition exists when an “interfering code sequence” can still access the shared resource, violating exclusivity. Programmers may assume that certain code sequences execute too quickly to be affected by an interfering code sequence; when they are not, this violates atomicity. For example, the single “x++” statement may appear atomic at the code layer, but it is actually non-atomic at the instruction layer, since it involves a read (the original value of x), followed by a computation (x+1), followed by a write (save the result to x). The interfering code sequence could be “trusted” or “untrusted.” A trusted interfering code sequence occurs within the product; it cannot be modified by the attacker, and it can only be invoked indirectly. An untrusted interfering code sequence can be authored directly by the attacker, and typically it is external to the vulnerable product.

Potential Mitigations

• Minimize the usage of shared resources in order to remove as much complexity as possible from the control flow and to reduce the likelihood of unexpected conditions occurring.
• Additionally, this will minimize the amount of synchronization necessary and may even help to reduce the likelihood of a denial of service where an attacker may be able to repeatedly trigger a critical section (CWE-400).

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/26.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/29.html

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6605fd2f394bba0a0059df2b6cfc87b0b6d393a2
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e342c2558016ead462f376b6c6c2ac5efc17f3b1