CVE-2022-48734

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

btrfs: fix deadlock between quota disable and qgroup rescan worker

Quota disable ioctl starts a transaction before waiting for the qgroup rescan worker completes. However, this wait can be infinite and results in deadlock because of circular dependency among the quota disable ioctl, the qgroup rescan worker and the other task with transaction such as block group relocation task.

The deadlock happens with the steps following:

1. Task A calls ioctl to disable quota. It starts a transaction and waits for qgroup rescan worker completes.
2. Task B such as block group relocation task starts a transaction and joins to the transaction that task A started. Then task B commits to the transaction. In this commit, task B waits for a commit by task A.
3. Task C as the qgroup rescan worker starts its job and starts a transaction. In this transaction start, task C waits for completion of the transaction that task A started and task B committed.

This deadlock was found with fstests test case btrfs/115 and a zoned null_blk device. The test case enables and disables quota, and the block group reclaim was triggered during the quota disable by chance. The deadlock was also observed by running quota enable and disable in parallel with btrfs balance command on regular null_blk devices.

An example report of the deadlock:

[372.469894] INFO: task kworker/u16:6:103 blocked for more than 122 seconds. [372.479944] Not tainted 5.16.0-rc8 #7 [372.485067] echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs disables this message. [372.493898] task:kworker/u16:6 state:D stack: 0 pid: 103 ppid: 2 flags:0x00004000 [372.503285] Workqueue: btrfs-qgroup-rescan btrfs_work_helper [btrfs] [372.510782] Call Trace: [372.514092] [372.521684] __schedule+0xb56/0x4850 [372.530104] ? io_schedule_timeout+0x190/0x190 [372.538842] ? lockdep_hardirqs_on+0x7e/0x100 [372.547092] ? _raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore+0x3e/0x60 [372.555591] schedule+0xe0/0x270 [372.561894] btrfs_commit_transaction+0x18bb/0x2610 [btrfs] [372.570506] ? btrfs_apply_pending_changes+0x50/0x50 [btrfs] [372.578875] ? free_unref_page+0x3f2/0x650 [372.585484] ? finish_wait+0x270/0x270 [372.591594] ? release_extent_buffer+0x224/0x420 [btrfs] [372.599264] btrfs_qgroup_rescan_worker+0xc13/0x10c0 [btrfs] [372.607157] ? lock_release+0x3a9/0x6d0 [372.613054] ? btrfs_qgroup_account_extent+0xda0/0xda0 [btrfs] [372.620960] ? do_raw_spin_lock+0x11e/0x250 [372.627137] ? rwlock_bug.part.0+0x90/0x90 [372.633215] ? lock_is_held_type+0xe4/0x140 [372.639404] btrfs_work_helper+0x1ae/0xa90 [btrfs] [372.646268] process_one_work+0x7e9/0x1320 [372.652321] ? lock_release+0x6d0/0x6d0 [372.658081] ? pwq_dec_nr_in_flight+0x230/0x230 [372.664513] ? rwlock_bug.part.0+0x90/0x90 [372.670529] worker_thread+0x59e/0xf90 [372.676172] ? process_one_work+0x1320/0x1320 [372.682440] kthread+0x3b9/0x490 [372.687550] ? _raw_spin_unlock_irq+0x24/0x50 [372.693811] ? set_kthread_struct+0x100/0x100 [372.700052] ret_from_fork+0x22/0x30 [372.705517] [372.709747] INFO: task btrfs-transacti:2347 blocked for more than 123 seconds. [372.729827] Not tainted 5.16.0-rc8 #7 [372.745907] echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs disables this message. [372.767106] task:btrfs-transacti state:D stack: 0 pid: 2347 ppid: 2 flags:0x00004000 [372.787776] Call Trace: [372.801652] [372.812961] __schedule+0xb56/0x4850 [372.830011] ? io_schedule_timeout+0x190/0x190 [372.852547] ? lockdep_hardirqs_on+0x7e/0x100 [372.871761] ? _raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore+0x3e/0x60 [372.886792] schedule+0xe0/0x270 [372.901685] wait_current_trans+0x22c/0x310 [btrfs] [372.919743] ? btrfs_put_transaction+0x3d0/0x3d0 [btrfs] [372.938923] ? finish_wait+0x270/0x270 [372.959085] ? join_transaction+0xc7 —truncated—

Weakness

The product does not properly acquire or release a lock on a resource, leading to unexpected resource state changes and behaviors.

Affected Software

Extended Description

Locking is a type of synchronization behavior that ensures that multiple independently-operating processes or threads do not interfere with each other when accessing the same resource. All processes/threads are expected to follow the same steps for locking. If these steps are not followed precisely - or if no locking is done at all - then another process/thread could modify the shared resource in a way that is not visible or predictable to the original process. This can lead to data or memory corruption, denial of service, etc.

Potential Mitigations

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/25.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/26.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/27.html

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/26b3901d20bf9da2c6a00cb1fb48932166f80a45
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/31198e58c09e21d4f65c49d2361f76b87aca4c3f
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/32747e01436aac8ef93fe85b5b523b4f3b52f040
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/89d4cca583fc9594ee7d1a0bc986886d6fb587e6
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e804861bd4e69cc5fe1053eedcb024982dde8e48