In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/drm_file: Fix pid refcounting race <[email protected]>, Maxime Ripard <[email protected]>, Thomas Zimmermann <[email protected]> filp->pid is supposed to be a refcounted pointer; however, before this patch, drm_file_update_pid() only increments the refcount of a struct pid after storing a pointer to it in filp->pid and dropping the dev->filelist_mutex, making the following race possible: process A process B ========= ========= begin drm_file_update_pid mutex_lock(&dev->filelist_mutex) rcu_replace_pointer(filp->pid, <pid B>, 1) mutex_unlock(&dev->filelist_mutex) begin drm_file_update_pid mutex_lock(&dev->filelist_mutex) rcu_replace_pointer(filp->pid, <pid A>, 1) mutex_unlock(&dev->filelist_mutex) get_pid(<pid A>) synchronize_rcu() put_pid(<pid B>) *** pid B reaches refcount 0 and is freed here *** get_pid(<pid B>) *** UAF *** synchronize_rcu() put_pid(<pid A>) As far as I know, this race can only occur with CONFIG_PREEMPT_RCU=y because it requires RCU to detect a quiescent state in code that is not explicitly calling into the scheduler. This race leads to use-after-free of a "struct pid". It is probably somewhat hard to hit because process A has to pass through a synchronize_rcu() operation while process B is between mutex_unlock() and get_pid(). Fix it by ensuring that by the time a pointer to the current task's pid is stored in the file, an extra reference to the pid has been taken. This fix also removes the condition for synchronize_rcu(); I think that optimization is unnecessary complexity, since in that case we would usually have bailed out on the lockless check above.

Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/drm_file: Fix pid refcounting race <[email protected]>, Maxime Ripard <[email protected]>, Thomas Zimmermann <[email protected]> filp->pid is supposed to be a refcounted pointer; however, before this patch, drm_file_update_pid() only increments the refcount of a struct pid after storing a pointer to it in filp->pid and dropping the dev->filelist_mutex, making the following race possible: process A process B ========= ========= begin drm_file_update_pid mutex_lock(&dev->filelist_mutex) rcu_replace_pointer(filp->pid, <pid B>, 1) mutex_unlock(&dev->filelist_mutex) begin drm_file_update_pid mutex_lock(&dev->filelist_mutex) rcu_replace_pointer(filp->pid, <pid A>, 1) mutex_unlock(&dev->filelist_mutex) get_pid(<pid A>) synchronize_rcu() put_pid(<pid B>) *** pid B reaches refcount 0 and is freed here *** get_pid(<pid B>) *** UAF *** synchronize_rcu() put_pid(<pid A>) As far as I know, this race can only occur with CONFIG_PREEMPT_RCU=y because it requires RCU to detect a quiescent state in code that is not explicitly calling into the scheduler. This race leads to use-after-free of a "struct pid". It is probably somewhat hard to hit because process A has to pass through a synchronize_rcu() operation while process B is between mutex_unlock() and get_pid(). Fix it by ensuring that by the time a pointer to the current task's pid is stored in the file, an extra reference to the pid has been taken. This fix also removes the condition for synchronize_rcu(); I think that optimization is unnecessary complexity, since in that case we would usually have bailed out on the lockless check above.

Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.