CVE-2024-47691

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

f2fs: fix to avoid use-after-free in f2fs_stop_gc_thread()

syzbot reports a f2fs bug as below:

__dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:88 [inline] dump_stack_lvl+0x241/0x360 lib/dump_stack.c:114 print_report+0xe8/0x550 mm/kasan/report.c:491 kasan_report+0x143/0x180 mm/kasan/report.c:601 kasan_check_range+0x282/0x290 mm/kasan/generic.c:189 instrument_atomic_read_write include/linux/instrumented.h:96 [inline] atomic_fetch_add_relaxed include/linux/atomic/atomic-instrumented.h:252 [inline] __refcount_add include/linux/refcount.h:184 [inline] __refcount_inc include/linux/refcount.h:241 [inline] refcount_inc include/linux/refcount.h:258 [inline] get_task_struct include/linux/sched/task.h:118 [inline] kthread_stop+0xca/0x630 kernel/kthread.c:704 f2fs_stop_gc_thread+0x65/0xb0 fs/f2fs/gc.c:210 f2fs_do_shutdown+0x192/0x540 fs/f2fs/file.c:2283 f2fs_ioc_shutdown fs/f2fs/file.c:2325 [inline] __f2fs_ioctl+0x443a/0xbe60 fs/f2fs/file.c:4325 vfs_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:51 [inline] __do_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:907 [inline] __se_sys_ioctl+0xfc/0x170 fs/ioctl.c:893 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:52 [inline] do_syscall_64+0xf3/0x230 arch/x86/entry/common.c:83 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f

The root cause is below race condition, it may cause use-after-free issue in sbi->gc_th pointer.

• remount
• f2fs_remount
• f2fs_stop_gc_thread
• kfree(gc_th) - f2fs_ioc_shutdown - f2fs_do_shutdown - f2fs_stop_gc_thread - kthread_stop(gc_th->f2fs_gc_task) : sbi->gc_thread = NULL;

We will call f2fs_do_shutdown() in two paths:

• for f2fs_ioc_shutdown() path, we should grab sb->s_umount semaphore for fixing.
• for f2fs_shutdown() path, its safe since caller has already grabbed sb->s_umount semaphore.

Weakness

Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code.

Affected Software

Extended Description

The use of previously-freed memory can have any number of adverse consequences, ranging from the corruption of valid data to the execution of arbitrary code, depending on the instantiation and timing of the flaw. The simplest way data corruption may occur involves the system’s reuse of the freed memory. Use-after-free errors have two common and sometimes overlapping causes:

In this scenario, the memory in question is allocated to another pointer validly at some point after it has been freed. The original pointer to the freed memory is used again and points to somewhere within the new allocation. As the data is changed, it corrupts the validly used memory; this induces undefined behavior in the process. If the newly allocated data happens to hold a class, in C++ for example, various function pointers may be scattered within the heap data. If one of these function pointers is overwritten with an address to valid shellcode, execution of arbitrary code can be achieved.

Potential Mitigations

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7c339dee7eb0f8e4cadc317c595f898ef04dae30
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c7f114d864ac91515bb07ac271e9824a20f5ed95
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d79343cd66343709e409d96b2abb139a0a55ce34
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fc18e655b62ac6bc9f12f5de0d749b4a3fe1e812