CVE-2024-49866

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

tracing/timerlat: Fix a race during cpuhp processing

There is another found exception that the timerlat/1 thread was scheduled on CPU0, and lead to timer corruption finally:

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ODEBUG: init active (active state 0) object: ffff888237c2e108 object type: hrtimer hint: timerlat_irq+0x0/0x220
WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 426 at lib/debugobjects.c:518 debug_print_object+0x7d/0xb0
Modules linked in:
CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 426 Comm: timerlat/1 Not tainted 6.11.0-rc7+ #45
Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.13.0-1ubuntu1.1 04/01/2014
RIP: 0010:debug_print_object+0x7d/0xb0
...
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 ? __warn+0x7c/0x110
 ? debug_print_object+0x7d/0xb0
 ? report_bug+0xf1/0x1d0
 ? prb_read_valid+0x17/0x20
 ? handle_bug+0x3f/0x70
 ? exc_invalid_op+0x13/0x60
 ? asm_exc_invalid_op+0x16/0x20
 ? debug_print_object+0x7d/0xb0
 ? debug_print_object+0x7d/0xb0
 ? __pfx_timerlat_irq+0x10/0x10
 __debug_object_init+0x110/0x150
 hrtimer_init+0x1d/0x60
 timerlat_main+0xab/0x2d0
 ? __pfx_timerlat_main+0x10/0x10
 kthread+0xb7/0xe0
 ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10
 ret_from_fork+0x2d/0x40
 ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10
 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30
 </TASK>

After tracing the scheduling event, it was discovered that the migration of the timerlat/1 thread was performed during thread creation. Further analysis confirmed that it is because the CPU online processing for osnoise is implemented through workers, which is asynchronous with the offline processing. When the worker was scheduled to create a thread, the CPU may has already been removed from the cpu_online_mask during the offline process, resulting in the inability to select the right CPU:

T1 | T2 [CPUHP_ONLINE] | cpu_device_down() osnoise_hotplug_workfn() | | cpus_write_lock() | takedown_cpu(1) | cpus_write_unlock() [CPUHP_OFFLINE] | cpus_read_lock() | start_kthread(1) | cpus_read_unlock() |

To fix this, skip online processing if the CPU is already offline.

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/322920b53dc11f9c2b33397eb3ae5bc6a175b60d
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/829e0c9f0855f26b3ae830d17b24aec103f7e915
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a0d9c0cd5856191e095cf43a2e141b73945b7716
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a6e9849063a6c8f4cb2f652a437e44e3ed24356c
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ce25f33ba89d6eefef64157655d318444580fa14
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f72b451dc75578f644a3019c1489e9ae2c14e6c4