CVE-2022-48689

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

tcp: TX zerocopy should not sense pfmemalloc status

We got a recent syzbot report [1] showing a possible misuse of pfmemalloc page status in TCP zerocopy paths.

Indeed, for pages coming from user space or other layers, using page_is_pfmemalloc() is moot, and possibly could give false positives.

There has been attempts to make page_is_pfmemalloc() more robust, but not using it in the first place in this context is probably better, removing cpu cycles.

Note to stable teams :

You need to backport 84ce071e38a6 (net: introduce __skb_fill_page_desc_noacc) as a prereq.

Race is more probable after commit c07aea3ef4d4 (mm: add a signature in struct page) because page_is_pfmemalloc() is now using low order bit from page->lru.next, which can change more often than page->index.

Low order bit should never be set for lru.next (when used as an anchor in LRU list), so KCSAN report is mostly a false positive.

Backporting to older kernel versions seems not necessary.

[1] BUG: KCSAN: data-race in lru_add_fn / tcp_build_frag

write to 0xffffea0004a1d2c8 of 8 bytes by task 18600 on cpu 0: __list_add include/linux/list.h:73 [inline] list_add include/linux/list.h:88 [inline] lruvec_add_folio include/linux/mm_inline.h:105 [inline] lru_add_fn+0x440/0x520 mm/swap.c:228 folio_batch_move_lru+0x1e1/0x2a0 mm/swap.c:246 folio_batch_add_and_move mm/swap.c:263 [inline] folio_add_lru+0xf1/0x140 mm/swap.c:490 filemap_add_folio+0xf8/0x150 mm/filemap.c:948 __filemap_get_folio+0x510/0x6d0 mm/filemap.c:1981 pagecache_get_page+0x26/0x190 mm/folio-compat.c:104 grab_cache_page_write_begin+0x2a/0x30 mm/folio-compat.c:116 ext4_da_write_begin+0x2dd/0x5f0 fs/ext4/inode.c:2988 generic_perform_write+0x1d4/0x3f0 mm/filemap.c:3738 ext4_buffered_write_iter+0x235/0x3e0 fs/ext4/file.c:270 ext4_file_write_iter+0x2e3/0x1210 call_write_iter include/linux/fs.h:2187 [inline] new_sync_write fs/read_write.c:491 [inline] vfs_write+0x468/0x760 fs/read_write.c:578 ksys_write+0xe8/0x1a0 fs/read_write.c:631 __do_sys_write fs/read_write.c:643 [inline] __se_sys_write fs/read_write.c:640 [inline] __x64_sys_write+0x3e/0x50 fs/read_write.c:640 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x2b/0x70 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd

read to 0xffffea0004a1d2c8 of 8 bytes by task 18611 on cpu 1: page_is_pfmemalloc include/linux/mm.h:1740 [inline] __skb_fill_page_desc include/linux/skbuff.h:2422 [inline] skb_fill_page_desc include/linux/skbuff.h:2443 [inline] tcp_build_frag+0x613/0xb20 net/ipv4/tcp.c:1018 do_tcp_sendpages+0x3e8/0xaf0 net/ipv4/tcp.c:1075 tcp_sendpage_locked net/ipv4/tcp.c:1140 [inline] tcp_sendpage+0x89/0xb0 net/ipv4/tcp.c:1150 inet_sendpage+0x7f/0xc0 net/ipv4/af_inet.c:833 kernel_sendpage+0x184/0x300 net/socket.c:3561 sock_sendpage+0x5a/0x70 net/socket.c:1054 pipe_to_sendpage+0x128/0x160 fs/splice.c:361 splice_from_pipe_feed fs/splice.c:415 [inline] __splice_from_pipe+0x222/0x4d0 fs/splice.c:559 splice_from_pipe fs/splice.c:594 [inline] generic_splice_sendpage+0x89/0xc0 fs/splice.c:743 do_splice_from fs/splice.c:764 [inline] direct_splice_actor+0x80/0xa0 fs/splice.c:931 splice_direct_to_actor+0x305/0x620 fs/splice.c:886 do_splice_direct+0xfb/0x180 fs/splice.c:974 do_sendfile+0x3bf/0x910 fs/read_write.c:1249 __do_sys_sendfile64 fs/read_write.c:1317 [inline] __se_sys_sendfile64 fs/read_write.c:1303 [inline] __x64_sys_sendfile64+0x10c/0x150 fs/read_write.c:1303 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x2b/0x70 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd

value changed: 0x0000000000000000 -> 0xffffea0004a1d288

Reported by Kernel Concurrency Sanitizer on: CPU: 1 PID: 18611 Comm: syz-executor.4 Not tainted 6.0.0-rc2-syzkaller-00248-ge022620b5d05-dirty #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 07/22/2022

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/3261400639463a853ba2b3be8bd009c2a8089775
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6730c48ed6b0cd939fc9b30b2d621ce0b89bea83
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8527c9a6bf8e54fef0a8d3d7d8874a48c725c915