In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
fhandle: fix UAF due to unlocked ->mnt_ns read in may_decode_fh()
may_decode_fh() accesses mount::mnt_ns without holding any locks; that
means the mount can concurrently be unmounted, and the mnt_namespace can
concurrently be freed after an RCU grace period.
This race can happens as follows, assuming that the mount point was
created by open_tree(..., OPEN_TREE_CLONE):
thread 1 thread 2 RCU
__do_sys_open_by_handle_at
do_handle_open
handle_to_path
may_decode_fh
is_mounted
[mount::mnt_ns access]
[mount::mnt_ns access]
__do_sys_close
fput_close_sync
__fput
dissolve_on_fput
umount_tree
class_namespace_excl_destructor
namespace_unlock
free_mnt_ns
mnt_ns_tree_remove
call_rcu(mnt_ns_release_rcu)
mnt_ns_release_rcu
mnt_ns_release
kfree
[mnt_namespace::user_ns access] UAF
Fix it by taking rcu_read_lock() around the mount::mnt_ns access, like
in __prepend_path().
Additionally, document the semantics of mount::mnt_ns, and use WRITE_ONCE()
for writers that can race with lockless readers.
This bug is unreachable unless one of the following is set:
- CONFIG_PREEMPTION
- CONFIG_RCU_STRICT_GRACE_PERIOD
because it requires an RCU grace period to happen during a syscall without
an explicit preemption.
This doesn't seem to have interesting security impact; worst-case, it could
leak the result of an integer comparison to userspace (from the level
check in cap_capable()), cause an endless loop, or crash the kernel by
dereferencing an invalid address.