CVE-2022-50021

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

ext4: block range must be validated before use in ext4_mb_clear_bb()

Block range to free is validated in ext4_free_blocks() using ext4_inode_block_valid() and then its passed to ext4_mb_clear_bb(). However in some situations on bigalloc file system the range might be adjusted after the validation in ext4_free_blocks() which can lead to troubles on corrupted file systems such as one found by syzkaller that resulted in the following BUG

kernel BUG at fs/ext4/ext4.h:3319! PREEMPT SMP NOPTI CPU: 28 PID: 4243 Comm: repro Kdump: loaded Not tainted 5.19.0-rc6+ #1 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 1.15.0-1.fc35 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:ext4_free_blocks+0x95e/0xa90 Call Trace: ? lock_timer_base+0x61/0x80 ? __es_remove_extent+0x5a/0x760 ? __mod_timer+0x256/0x380 ? ext4_ind_truncate_ensure_credits+0x90/0x220 ext4_clear_blocks+0x107/0x1b0 ext4_free_data+0x15b/0x170 ext4_ind_truncate+0x214/0x2c0 ? _raw_spin_unlock+0x15/0x30 ? ext4_discard_preallocations+0x15a/0x410 ? ext4_journal_check_start+0xe/0x90 ? __ext4_journal_start_sb+0x2f/0x110 ext4_truncate+0x1b5/0x460 ? __ext4_journal_start_sb+0x2f/0x110 ext4_evict_inode+0x2b4/0x6f0 evict+0xd0/0x1d0 ext4_enable_quotas+0x11f/0x1f0 ext4_orphan_cleanup+0x3de/0x430 ? proc_create_seq_private+0x43/0x50 ext4_fill_super+0x295f/0x3ae0 ? snprintf+0x39/0x40 ? sget_fc+0x19c/0x330 ? ext4_reconfigure+0x850/0x850 get_tree_bdev+0x16d/0x260 vfs_get_tree+0x25/0xb0 path_mount+0x431/0xa70 __x64_sys_mount+0xe2/0x120 do_syscall_64+0x5b/0x80 ? do_user_addr_fault+0x1e2/0x670 ? exc_page_fault+0x70/0x170 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x46/0xb0 RIP: 0033:0x7fdf4e512ace

Fix it by making sure that the block range is properly validated before used every time it changes in ext4_free_blocks() or ext4_mb_clear_bb().

Weakness

The product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory “belongs” to the code that operates on the new pointer.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1e1c2b86ef86a8477fd9b9a4f48a6bfe235606f6
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/560a2744cbbf03cac65a6394f9b0d99aa437c867
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7550aade978371ac582f6d43b14c4cb89ca54463
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a2522041d248a8c969cbbc97e1fc2cd8b4de120d