CVE-2024-49867

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

btrfs: wait for fixup workers before stopping cleaner kthread during umount

During unmount, at close_ctree(), we have the following steps in this order:

1. Park the cleaner kthread - this doesnt destroy the kthread, it basically halts its execution (wake ups against it work but do nothing);

2. We stop the cleaner kthread - this results in freeing the respective struct task_struct;

3. We call btrfs_stop_all_workers() which waits for any jobs running in all the work queues and then free the work queues.

Syzbot reported a case where a fixup worker resulted in a crash when doing a delayed iput on its inode while attempting to wake up the cleaner at btrfs_add_delayed_iput(), because the task_struct of the cleaner kthread was already freed. This can happen during unmount because we dont wait for any fixup workers still running before we call kthread_stop() against the cleaner kthread, which stops and free all its resources.

Fix this by waiting for any fixup workers at close_ctree() before we call kthread_stop() against the cleaner and run pending delayed iputs.

The stack traces reported by syzbot were the following:

BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in __lock_acquire+0x77/0x2050 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5065 Read of size 8 at addr ffff8880272a8a18 by task kworker/u8:3/52

CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 52 Comm: kworker/u8:3 Not tainted 6.12.0-rc1-syzkaller #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 09/13/2024 Workqueue: btrfs-fixup btrfs_work_helper Call Trace: __dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:94 [inline] dump_stack_lvl+0x241/0x360 lib/dump_stack.c:120 print_address_description mm/kasan/report.c:377 [inline] print_report+0x169/0x550 mm/kasan/report.c:488 kasan_report+0x143/0x180 mm/kasan/report.c:601 __lock_acquire+0x77/0x2050 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5065 lock_acquire+0x1ed/0x550 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5825 __raw_spin_lock_irqsave include/linux/spinlock_api_smp.h:110 [inline] _raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0xd5/0x120 kernel/locking/spinlock.c:162 class_raw_spinlock_irqsave_constructor include/linux/spinlock.h:551 [inline] try_to_wake_up+0xb0/0x1480 kernel/sched/core.c:4154 btrfs_writepage_fixup_worker+0xc16/0xdf0 fs/btrfs/inode.c:2842 btrfs_work_helper+0x390/0xc50 fs/btrfs/async-thread.c:314 process_one_work kernel/workqueue.c:3229 [inline] process_scheduled_works+0xa63/0x1850 kernel/workqueue.c:3310 worker_thread+0x870/0xd30 kernel/workqueue.c:3391 kthread+0x2f0/0x390 kernel/kthread.c:389 ret_from_fork+0x4b/0x80 arch/x86/kernel/process.c:147 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:244

Allocated by task 2: kasan_save_stack mm/kasan/common.c:47 [inline] kasan_save_track+0x3f/0x80 mm/kasan/common.c:68 unpoison_slab_object mm/kasan/common.c:319 [inline] __kasan_slab_alloc+0x66/0x80 mm/kasan/common.c:345 kasan_slab_alloc include/linux/kasan.h:247 [inline] slab_post_alloc_hook mm/slub.c:4086 [inline] slab_alloc_node mm/slub.c:4135 [inline] kmem_cache_alloc_node_noprof+0x16b/0x320 mm/slub.c:4187 alloc_task_struct_node kernel/fork.c:180 [inline] dup_task_struct+0x57/0x8c0 kernel/fork.c:1107 copy_process+0x5d1/0x3d50 kernel/fork.c:2206 kernel_clone+0x223/0x880 kernel/fork.c:2787 kernel_thread+0x1bc/0x240 kernel/fork.c:2849 create_kthread kernel/kthread.c:412 [inline] kthreadd+0x60d/0x810 kernel/kthread.c:765 ret_from_fork+0x4b/0x80 arch/x86/kernel/process.c:147 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:244

Freed by task 61: kasan_save_stack mm/kasan/common.c:47 [inline] kasan_save_track+0x3f/0x80 mm/kasan/common.c:68 kasan_save_free_info+0x40/0x50 mm/kasan/generic.c:579 poison_slab_object mm/kasan/common.c:247 [inline] __kasan_slab_free+0x59/0x70 mm/kasan/common.c:264 kasan_slab_free include/linux/kasan.h:230 [inline] slab_free_h —truncated—

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/41fd1e94066a815a7ab0a7025359e9b40e4b3576
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4c98fe0dfa2ae83c4631699695506d8941db4bfe
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/65d11eb276836d49003a8060cf31fa2284ad1047
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/70b60c8d9b42763d6629e44f448aa5d8ae477d61
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9da40aea63f8769f28afb91aea0fac4cf6fbbb65
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a71349b692ab34ea197949e13e3cc42570fe73d9
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bf0de0f9a0544c11f96f93206da04ab87dcea1f4
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/cd686dfff63f27d712877aef5b962fbf6b8bc264
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ed87190e9d9c80aad220fb6b0b03a84d22e2c95b