CVE-2024-26984

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

nouveau: fix instmem race condition around ptr stores

Running a lot of VK CTS in parallel against nouveau, once every few hours you might see something like this crash.

BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000008 PGD 8000000114e6e067 P4D 8000000114e6e067 PUD 109046067 PMD 0 Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP PTI CPU: 7 PID: 53891 Comm: deqp-vk Not tainted 6.8.0-rc6+ #27 Hardware name: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. Z390 I AORUS PRO WIFI/Z390 I AORUS PRO WIFI-CF, BIOS F8 11/05/2021 RIP: 0010:gp100_vmm_pgt_mem+0xe3/0x180 [nouveau] Code: c7 48 01 c8 49 89 45 58 85 d2 0f 84 95 00 00 00 41 0f b7 46 12 49 8b 7e 08 89 da 42 8d 2c f8 48 8b 47 08 41 83 c7 01 48 89 ee <48> 8b 40 08 ff d0 0f 1f 00 49 8b 7e 08 48 89 d9 48 8d 75 04 48 c1 RSP: 0000:ffffac20c5857838 EFLAGS: 00010202 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 00000000004d8001 RCX: 0000000000000001 RDX: 00000000004d8001 RSI: 00000000000006d8 RDI: ffffa07afe332180 RBP: 00000000000006d8 R08: ffffac20c5857ad0 R09: 0000000000ffff10 R10: 0000000000000001 R11: ffffa07af27e2de0 R12: 000000000000001c R13: ffffac20c5857ad0 R14: ffffa07a96fe9040 R15: 000000000000001c FS: 00007fe395eed7c0(0000) GS:ffffa07e2c980000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 0000000000000008 CR3: 000000011febe001 CR4: 00000000003706f0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Call Trace:

…

? gp100_vmm_pgt_mem+0xe3/0x180 [nouveau] ? gp100_vmm_pgt_mem+0x37/0x180 [nouveau] nvkm_vmm_iter+0x351/0xa20 [nouveau] ? __pfx_nvkm_vmm_ref_ptes+0x10/0x10 [nouveau] ? __pfx_gp100_vmm_pgt_mem+0x10/0x10 [nouveau] ? __pfx_gp100_vmm_pgt_mem+0x10/0x10 [nouveau] ? __lock_acquire+0x3ed/0x2170 ? __pfx_gp100_vmm_pgt_mem+0x10/0x10 [nouveau] nvkm_vmm_ptes_get_map+0xc2/0x100 [nouveau] ? __pfx_nvkm_vmm_ref_ptes+0x10/0x10 [nouveau] ? __pfx_gp100_vmm_pgt_mem+0x10/0x10 [nouveau] nvkm_vmm_map_locked+0x224/0x3a0 [nouveau]

Adding any sort of useful debug usually makes it go away, so I hand wrote the function in a line, and debugged the asm.

Every so often pt->memory->ptrs is NULL. This ptrs ptr is set in the nv50_instobj_acquire called from nvkm_kmap.

If Thread A and Thread B both get to nv50_instobj_acquire around the same time, and Thread A hits the refcount_set line, and in lockstep thread B succeeds at refcount_inc_not_zero, there is a chance the ptrs value wont have been stored since refcount_set is unordered. Force a memory barrier here, I picked smp_mb, since we want it on all CPUs and its write followed by a read.

v2: use paired smp_rmb/smp_wmb.

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/13d76b2f443dc371842916dd8768009ff1594716
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1bc4825d4c3ec6abe43cf06c3c39d664d044cbf7
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/21ca9539f09360fd83654f78f2c361f2f5ddcb52
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3ab056814cd8ab84744c9a19ef51360b2271c572
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a019b44b1bc6ed224c46fb5f88a8a10dd116e525
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ad74d208f213c06d860916ad40f609ade8c13039
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bba8ec5e9b16649d85bc9e9086bf7ae5b5716ff9
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fff1386cc889d8fb4089d285f883f8cba62d82ce