In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
binfmt_misc: don't leak the user namespace when the mount fails
bm_get_tree() takes a reference to the user namespace and hands it to
get_tree_keyed() as the sget key. sget_fc() moves that reference into
sb->s_fs_info and clears fc->s_fs_info, so from that point on the
superblock owns it and bm_free() doesn't see it anymore.
The superblock drops it in ->put_super(). But generic_shutdown_super()
only calls ->put_super() from inside the if (sb->s_root) branch, so
nothing releases it when bm_fill_super() fails:
-
The kzalloc_obj() failure leaves s_root NULL and the whole branch is
skipped.
-
A simple_fill_super() failure in the file loop leaves s_root set, but
s_op still points at simple_super_operations, which has no
->put_super(). bm_fill_super() installs s_ops only once
simple_fill_super() returned success, and installing it earlier
wouldn't help either because simple_fill_super() overwrites s_op.
Either way vfs_get_super() calls deactivate_locked_super() and the
reference is gone for good. binfmt_misc mounts are available in a user
namespace and both the inode and the dentry cache are SLAB_ACCOUNT, so
an unprivileged caller under a tight memory cgroup can fail
simple_fill_super() on demand and leak one user namespace per attempt.
Drop the reference in ->kill_sb() instead, which runs unconditionally,
the same way nfsd and rpc_pipefs release their keyed s_fs_info.
That also stops ->put_super() from clearing s_fs_info while the
superblock is still on @fs_supers. generic_shutdown_super() leaves it
there on purpose so that sget_fc() keeps finding it until kill_sb() has
run, but a NULL s_fs_info makes test_keyed_super() miss it, so a
concurrent mount for the same user namespace skips the grab_super()
wait and creates a second superblock for a namespace that is still
being torn down.