Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sched/fair: Prevent dead task groups from regaining cfs_rq's Kevin is reporting crashes which point to a use-after-free of a cfs_rq in update_blocked_averages(). Initial debugging revealed that we've live cfs_rq's (on_list=1) in an about to be kfree()'d task group in free_fair_sched_group(). However, it was unclear how that can happen. His kernel config happened to lead to a layout of struct sched_entity that put the 'my_q' member directly into the middle of the object which makes it incidentally overlap with SLUB's freelist pointer. That, in combination with SLAB_FREELIST_HARDENED's freelist pointer mangling, leads to a reliable access violation in form of a #GP which made the UAF fail fast. Michal seems to have run into the same issue[1]. He already correctly diagnosed that commit a7b359fc6a37 ("sched/fair: Correctly insert cfs_rq's to list on unthrottle") is causing the preconditions for the UAF to happen by re-adding cfs_rq's also to task groups that have no more running tasks, i.e. also to dead ones. His analysis, however, misses the real root cause and it cannot be seen from the crash backtrace only, as the real offender is tg_unthrottle_up() getting called via sched_cfs_period_timer() via the timer interrupt at an inconvenient time. When unregister_fair_sched_group() unlinks all cfs_rq's from the dying task group, it doesn't protect itself from getting interrupted. If the timer interrupt triggers while we iterate over all CPUs or after unregister_fair_sched_group() has finished but prior to unlinking the task group, sched_cfs_period_timer() will execute and walk the list of task groups, trying to unthrottle cfs_rq's, i.e. re-add them to the dying task group. These will later -- in free_fair_sched_group() -- be kfree()'ed while still being linked, leading to the fireworks Kevin and Michal are seeing. To fix this race, ensure the dying task group gets unlinked first. However, simply switching the order of unregistering and unlinking the task group isn't sufficient, as concurrent RCU walkers might still see it, as can be seen below: CPU1: CPU2: : timer IRQ: : do_sched_cfs_period_timer(): : : : distribute_cfs_runtime(): : rcu_read_lock(); : : : unthrottle_cfs_rq(): sched_offline_group(): : : walk_tg_tree_from(…,tg_unthrottle_up,…): list_del_rcu(&tg->list); : (1) : list_for_each_entry_rcu(child, &parent->children, siblings) : : (2) list_del_rcu(&tg->siblings); : : tg_unthrottle_up(): unregister_fair_sched_group(): struct cfs_rq *cfs_rq = tg->cfs_rq[cpu_of(rq)]; : : list_del_leaf_cfs_rq(tg->cfs_rq[cpu]); : : : : if (!cfs_rq_is_decayed(cfs_rq) || cfs_rq->nr_running) (3) : list_add_leaf_cfs_rq(cfs_rq); : : : : : : : : : ---truncated---

Severity

 

CVSS Version 3.x CVSS Version 2.0

CVSS 3.x Severity and Metrics:

NIST: NVD

Base Score:  N/A

NVD assessment not yet provided.

NVD Analysts use publicly available information to associate vector strings and CVSS scores. We also display any CVSS information provided within the CVE List from the CNA.

Note: NVD Analysts have not published a CVSS score for this CVE at this time. NVD Analysts use publicly available information at the time of analysis to associate CVSS vector strings.

CVSS 2.0 Severity and Metrics:

NIST: NVD

Base Score: N/A

NVD assessment not yet provided.

NVD Analysts use publicly available information to associate vector strings and CVSS scores. We also display any CVSS information provided within the CVE List from the CNA.

Note: NVD Analysts have not published a CVSS score for this CVE at this time. NVD Analysts use publicly available information at the time of analysis to associate CVSS vector strings.

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

sched/fair: Prevent dead task groups from regaining cfs_rq's

Kevin is reporting crashes which point to a use-after-free of a cfs_rq
in update_blocked_averages(). Initial debugging revealed that we've
live cfs_rq's (on_list=1) in an about to be kfree()'d task group in
free_fair_sched_group(). However, it was unclear how that can happen.

His kernel config happened to lead to a layout of struct sched_entity
that put the 'my_q' m

kernel.org https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/512e21c150c1c3ee298852660f3a796e267e62ec [No types assigned]

kernel.org https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b027789e5e50494c2325cc70c8642e7fd6059479 [No types assigned]