Attacker Value
Unknown
(0 users assessed)
Exploitability
Unknown
(0 users assessed)
User Interaction
Unknown
Privileges Required
Unknown
Attack Vector
Unknown
0

CVE-2024-38306

Disclosure Date: June 25, 2024
Add MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques that apply to this CVE.

Description

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

btrfs: protect folio::private when attaching extent buffer folios

[BUG]
Since v6.8 there are rare kernel crashes reported by various people,
the common factor is bad page status error messages like this:

BUG: Bad page state in process kswapd0 pfn:d6e840
page: refcount:0 mapcount:0 mapping:000000007512f4f2 index:0x2796c2c7c
pfn:0xd6e840
aops:btree_aops ino:1
flags: 0x17ffffe0000008(uptodate|node=0|zone=2|lastcpupid=0x3fffff)
page_type: 0xffffffff()
raw: 0017ffffe0000008 dead000000000100 dead000000000122 ffff88826d0be4c0
raw: 00000002796c2c7c 0000000000000000 00000000ffffffff 0000000000000000
page dumped because: non-NULL mapping

[CAUSE]
Commit 09e6cef19c9f (“btrfs: refactor alloc_extent_buffer() to
allocate-then-attach method”) changes the sequence when allocating a new
extent buffer.

Previously we always called grab_extent_buffer() under
mapping->i_private_lock, to ensure the safety on modification on
folio::private (which is a pointer to extent buffer for regular
sectorsize).

This can lead to the following race:

Thread A is trying to allocate an extent buffer at bytenr X, with 4
4K pages, meanwhile thread B is trying to release the page at X + 4K
(the second page of the extent buffer at X).

       Thread A                |                 Thread B

—————————————————–+——————————————————-

                               | btree_release_folio()
			   | | This is for the page at X + 4K,
			   | | Not page X.
			   | |

alloc_extent_buffer() | |– release_extent_buffer()
|– filemap_add_folio() for the | | |– atomic_dec_and_test(eb->refs)
| page at bytenr X (the first | | |
| page). | | |
| Which returned -EEXIST. | | |
| | | |
|– filemap_lock_folio() | | |
| Returned the first page locked. | | |
| | | |
|– grab_extent_buffer() | | |
| |– atomic_inc_not_zero() | | |
| | Returned false | | |
| |– folio_detach_private() | | |– folio_detach_private() for X
| |– folio_test_private() | | |– folio_test_private()

  |  Returned true             | |     |  Returned true
  |- folio_put()               |       |- folio_put()

Now there are two puts on the same folio at folio X, leading to refcount
underflow of the folio X, and eventually causing the BUG_ON() on the
page->mapping.

The condition is not that easy to hit:

  • The release must be triggered for the middle page of an eb
    If the release is on the same first page of an eb, page lock would kick
    in and prevent the race.

  • folio_detach_private() has a very small race window
    It’s only between folio_test_private() and folio_clear_private().

That’s exactly when mapping->i_private_lock is used to prevent such race,
and commit 09e6cef19c9f (“btrfs: refactor alloc_extent_buffer() to
allocate-then-attach method”) screwed that up.

At that time, I thought the page lock would kick in as
filemap_release_folio() also requires the page to be locked, but forgot
the filemap_release_folio() only locks one page, not all pages of an
extent buffer.

[FIX]
Move all the code requiring i_private_lock into
attach_eb_folio_to_filemap(), so that everything is done with proper
lock protection.

Furthermore to prevent future problems, add an extra
lockdep_assert_locked() to ensure we’re holding the proper lock.

To reproducer that is able to hit the race (takes a few minutes with
instrumented code inserting delays to alloc_extent_buffer()):

#!/bin/sh
drop_caches () {

  while(true); do
	  echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
	  echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/compact_memory
  done

}

run_tar () {

  while(true); do
	  for x in `seq 1 80` ; do
		  tar cf /dev/zero /mnt > /dev/null &
	  done
	  wait
  done

}

mkfs.btrfs -f -d single -m single
—-truncated—-

Add Assessment

No one has assessed this topic. Be the first to add your voice to the community.

CVSS V3 Severity and Metrics
Base Score:
None
Impact Score:
Unknown
Exploitability Score:
Unknown
Vector:
Unknown
Attack Vector (AV):
Unknown
Attack Complexity (AC):
Unknown
Privileges Required (PR):
Unknown
User Interaction (UI):
Unknown
Scope (S):
Unknown
Confidentiality (C):
Unknown
Integrity (I):
Unknown
Availability (A):
Unknown

General Information

Vendors

  • Linux

Products

  • Linux

Additional Info

Technical Analysis