In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
drivers: core: synchronize really_probe() and dev_uevent()
Synchronize the dev->driver usage in really_probe() and dev_uevent().
These can run in different threads, what can result in the following
race condition for dev->driver uninitialization:
really_probe() {
…
probe_failed:
…
device_unbind_cleanup(dev) {
…
dev->driver = NULL; // <= Failed probe sets dev->driver to NULL
…
}
…
}
dev_uevent() {
…
if (dev->driver)
// If dev->driver is NULLed from really_probe() from here on,
// after above check, the system crashes
add_uevent_var(env, “DRIVER=%s”, dev->driver->name);
…
}
really_probe() holds the lock, already. So nothing needs to be done
there. dev_uevent() is called with lock held, often, too. But not
always. What implies that we can’t add any locking in dev_uevent()
itself. So fix this race by adding the lock to the non-protected
path. This is the path where above race is observed:
dev_uevent+0x235/0x380
uevent_show+0x10c/0x1f0 <= Add lock here
dev_attr_show+0x3a/0xa0
sysfs_kf_seq_show+0x17c/0x250
kernfs_seq_show+0x7c/0x90
seq_read_iter+0x2d7/0x940
kernfs_fop_read_iter+0xc6/0x310
vfs_read+0x5bc/0x6b0
ksys_read+0xeb/0x1b0
__x64_sys_read+0x42/0x50
x64_sys_call+0x27ad/0x2d30
do_syscall_64+0xcd/0x1d0
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f
Similar cases are reported by syzkaller in
https://syzkaller.appspot.com/bug?extid=ffa8143439596313a85a
But these are regarding the initialization of dev->driver
dev->driver = drv;
As this switches dev->driver to non-NULL these reports can be considered
to be false-positives (which should be “fixed” by this commit, as well,
though).
The same issue was reported and tried to be fixed back in 2015 in
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/[email protected]/
already.
git.kernel.org/stable/c/08891eeaa97c079b7f95d60b62dcf0e3ce034b69
git.kernel.org/stable/c/13d25e82b6d00d743c7961dcb260329f86bedf7c
git.kernel.org/stable/c/760603e30bf19d7b4c28e9d81f18b54fa3b745ad
git.kernel.org/stable/c/95d03d369ea647b89e950667f1c3363ea6f564e6
git.kernel.org/stable/c/a42b0060d6ff2f7e59290a26d5f162a3c6329b90
git.kernel.org/stable/c/bb3641a5831789d83a58a39ed4a928bcbece7080
git.kernel.org/stable/c/c0a40097f0bc81deafc15f9195d1fb54595cd6d0
git.kernel.org/stable/c/ec772ed7cb21b46fb132f89241682553efd0b721