CVE-2024-53095

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

smb: client: Fix use-after-free of network namespace.

Recently, we got a customer report that CIFS triggers oops while reconnecting to a server. [0]

The workload runs on Kubernetes, and some pods mount CIFS servers in non-root network namespaces. The problem rarely happened, but it was always while the pod was dying.

The root cause is wrong reference counting for network namespace.

CIFS uses kernel sockets, which do not hold refcnt of the netns that the socket belongs to. That means CIFS must ensure the socket is always freed before its netns; otherwise, use-after-free happens.

The repro steps are roughly:

1. mount CIFS in a non-root netns
2. drop packets from the netns
3. destroy the netns
4. unmount CIFS

We can reproduce the issue quickly with the script [1] below and see the splat [2] if CONFIG_NET_NS_REFCNT_TRACKER is enabled.

When the socket is TCP, it is hard to guarantee the netns lifetime without holding refcnt due to async timers.

Lets hold netns refcnt for each socket as done for SMC in commit 9744d2bf1976 (smc: Fix use-after-free in tcp_write_timer_handler().).

Note that we need to move put_net() from cifs_put_tcp_session() to clean_demultiplex_info(); otherwise, __sock_create() still could touch a freed netns while cifsd tries to reconnect from cifs_demultiplex_thread().

Also, maybe_get_net() cannot be put just before __sock_create() because the code is not under RCU and there is a small chance that the same address happened to be reallocated to another netns.

[0]: CIFS: VFS: XXXXXXXXXXX has not responded in 15 seconds. Reconnecting… CIFS: Serverclose failed 4 times, giving up Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 14de99e461f84a07 Mem abort info: ESR = 0x0000000096000004 EC = 0x25: DABT (current EL), IL = 32 bits SET = 0, FnV = 0 EA = 0, S1PTW = 0 FSC = 0x04: level 0 translation fault Data abort info: ISV = 0, ISS = 0x00000004 CM = 0, WnR = 0 [14de99e461f84a07] address between user and kernel address ranges Internal error: Oops: 0000000096000004 [#1] SMP Modules linked in: cls_bpf sch_ingress nls_utf8 cifs cifs_arc4 cifs_md4 dns_resolver tcp_diag inet_diag veth xt_state xt_connmark nf_conntrack_netlink xt_nat xt_statistic xt_MASQUERADE xt_mark xt_addrtype ipt_REJECT nf_reject_ipv4 nft_chain_nat nf_nat xt_conntrack nf_conntrack nf_defrag_ipv6 nf_defrag_ipv4 xt_comment nft_compat nf_tables nfnetlink overlay nls_ascii nls_cp437 sunrpc vfat fat aes_ce_blk aes_ce_cipher ghash_ce sm4_ce_cipher sm4 sm3_ce sm3 sha3_ce sha512_ce sha512_arm64 sha1_ce ena button sch_fq_codel loop fuse configfs dmi_sysfs sha2_ce sha256_arm64 dm_mirror dm_region_hash dm_log dm_mod dax efivarfs CPU: 5 PID: 2690970 Comm: cifsd Not tainted 6.1.103-109.184.amzn2023.aarch64 #1 Hardware name: Amazon EC2 r7g.4xlarge/, BIOS 1.0 11/1/2018 pstate: 00400005 (nzcv daif +PAN -UAO -TCO -DIT -SSBS BTYPE=–) pc : fib_rules_lookup+0x44/0x238 lr : __fib_lookup+0x64/0xbc sp : ffff8000265db790 x29: ffff8000265db790 x28: 0000000000000000 x27: 000000000000bd01 x26: 0000000000000000 x25: ffff000b4baf8000 x24: ffff00047b5e4580 x23: ffff8000265db7e0 x22: 0000000000000000 x21: ffff00047b5e4500 x20: ffff0010e3f694f8 x19: 14de99e461f849f7 x18: 0000000000000000 x17: 0000000000000000 x16: 0000000000000000 x15: 0000000000000000 x14: 0000000000000000 x13: 0000000000000000 x12: 3f92800abd010002 x11: 0000000000000001 x10: ffff0010e3f69420 x9 : ffff800008a6f294 x8 : 0000000000000000 x7 : 0000000000000006 x6 : 0000000000000000 x5 : 0000000000000001 x4 : ffff001924354280 x3 : ffff8000265db7e0 x2 : 0000000000000000 x1 : ffff0010e3f694f8 x0 : ffff00047b5e4500 Call trace: fib_rules_lookup+0x44/0x238 __fib_lookup+0x64/0xbc ip_route_output_key_hash_rcu+0x2c4/0x398 ip_route_output_key_hash+0x60/0x8c tcp_v4_connect+0x290/0x488 __inet_stream_connect+0x108/0x3d0 inet_stream_connect+0x50/0x78 kernel_connect+0x6c/0xac generic_ip_conne —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/c7f9282fc27fc36dbaffc8527c723de264a132f8
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e8c71494181153a134c96da28766a57bd1eac8cb
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ef7134c7fc48e1441b398e55a862232868a6f0a7