Vulnerabilities > CVE-2022-49327 - Improper Locking vulnerability in Linux Kernel
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bcache: avoid journal no-space deadlock by reserving 1 journal bucket The journal no-space deadlock was reported time to time. Such deadlock can happen in the following situation. When all journal buckets are fully filled by active jset with heavy write I/O load, the cache set registration (after a reboot) will load all active jsets and inserting them into the btree again (which is called journal replay). If a journaled bkey is inserted into a btree node and results btree node split, new journal request might be triggered. For example, the btree grows one more level after the node split, then the root node record in cache device super block will be upgrade by bch_journal_meta() from bch_btree_set_root(). But there is no space in journal buckets, the journal replay has to wait for new journal bucket to be reclaimed after at least one journal bucket replayed. This is one example that how the journal no-space deadlock happens. The solution to avoid the deadlock is to reserve 1 journal bucket in run time, and only permit the reserved journal bucket to be used during cache set registration procedure for things like journal replay. Then the journal space will never be fully filled, there is no chance for journal no-space deadlock to happen anymore. This patch adds a new member "bool do_reserve" in struct journal, it is inititalized to 0 (false) when struct journal is allocated, and set to 1 (true) by bch_journal_space_reserve() when all initialization done in run_cache_set(). In the run time when journal_reclaim() tries to allocate a new journal bucket, free_journal_buckets() is called to check whether there are enough free journal buckets to use. If there is only 1 free journal bucket and journal->do_reserve is 1 (true), the last bucket is reserved and free_journal_buckets() will return 0 to indicate no free journal bucket. Then journal_reclaim() will give up, and try next time to see whetheer there is free journal bucket to allocate. By this method, there is always 1 jouranl bucket reserved in run time. During the cache set registration, journal->do_reserve is 0 (false), so the reserved journal bucket can be used to avoid the no-space deadlock.
Vulnerable Configurations
Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)
- Leveraging Race Conditions This attack targets a race condition occurring when multiple processes access and manipulate the same resource concurrently and the outcome of the execution depends on the particular order in which the access takes place. The attacker can leverage a race condition by "running the race", modifying the resource and modifying the normal execution flow. For instance a race condition can occur while accessing a file, the attacker can trick the system by replacing the original file with his version and cause the system to read the malicious file.
- Leveraging Race Conditions via Symbolic Links This attack leverages the use of symbolic links (Symlinks) in order to write to sensitive files. An attacker can create a Symlink link to a target file not otherwise accessible to her. When the privileged program tries to create a temporary file with the same name as the Symlink link, it will actually write to the target file pointed to by the attackers' Symlink link. If the attacker can insert malicious content in the temporary file she will be writing to the sensitive file by using the Symlink. The race occurs because the system checks if the temporary file exists, then creates the file. The attacker would typically create the Symlink during the interval between the check and the creation of the temporary file.
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1dda32aed6f62c163f38ff947ef5b3360e329159
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/32feee36c30ea06e38ccb8ae6e5c44c6eec790a6
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5607652823ac65e2c6885e73bd46d5a4f9a20363
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/59afd4f287900c8187e968a4153ed35e6b48efce
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6332ea3e35efa12dc08f0cbf5faea5e6e8eb0497