CVE-2024-36888 workqueue: Fix selection of wake_cpu in kick_pool()

2024-05-3015:28:56

Linux

www.cve.org

linux kernel

vulnerability

workqueue fix

cpu selection

kernel pointer dereference

arch_vcpu_is_preempted

cpu_online_mask

cpu crash

cpu selection fix

scheduler

s390 arch code

unpredictable behavior

cve

6.2 Medium

AI Score

Confidence

Low

0.0004 Low

EPSS

Percentile

15.6%

JSON

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

workqueue: Fix selection of wake_cpu in kick_pool()

With cpu_possible_mask=0-63 and cpu_online_mask=0-7 the following
kernel oops was observed:

smp: Bringing up secondary CPUs …
smp: Brought up 1 node, 8 CPUs
Unable to handle kernel pointer dereference in virtual kernel address space
Failing address: 0000000000000000 TEID: 0000000000000803
[…]
Call Trace:
arch_vcpu_is_preempted+0x12/0x80
select_idle_sibling+0x42/0x560
select_task_rq_fair+0x29a/0x3b0
try_to_wake_up+0x38e/0x6e0
kick_pool+0xa4/0x198
__queue_work.part.0+0x2bc/0x3a8
call_timer_fn+0x36/0x160
__run_timers+0x1e2/0x328
__run_timer_base+0x5a/0x88
run_timer_softirq+0x40/0x78
__do_softirq+0x118/0x388
irq_exit_rcu+0xc0/0xd8
do_ext_irq+0xae/0x168
ext_int_handler+0xbe/0xf0
psw_idle_exit+0x0/0xc
default_idle_call+0x3c/0x110
do_idle+0xd4/0x158
cpu_startup_entry+0x40/0x48
rest_init+0xc6/0xc8
start_kernel+0x3c4/0x5e0
startup_continue+0x3c/0x50

The crash is caused by calling arch_vcpu_is_preempted() for an offline
CPU. To avoid this, select the cpu with cpumask_any_and_distribute()
to mask __pod_cpumask with cpu_online_mask. In case no cpu is left in
the pool, skip the assignment.

tj: This doesn’t fully fix the bug as CPUs can still go down between picking
the target CPU and the wake call. Fixing that likely requires adding
cpu_online() test to either the sched or s390 arch code. However, regardless
of how that is fixed, workqueue shouldn’t be picking a CPU which isn’t
online as that would result in unpredictable and worse behavior.

CNA Affected

[
  {
    "product": "Linux",
    "vendor": "Linux",
    "defaultStatus": "unaffected",
    "repo": "https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git",
    "programFiles": [
      "kernel/workqueue.c"
    ],
    "versions": [
      {
        "version": "8639ecebc9b1",
        "lessThan": "c57824d4fe07",
        "status": "affected",
        "versionType": "git"
      },
      {
        "version": "8639ecebc9b1",
        "lessThan": "6d559e70b3eb",
        "status": "affected",
        "versionType": "git"
      },
      {
        "version": "8639ecebc9b1",
        "lessThan": "57a01eafdcf7",
        "status": "affected",
        "versionType": "git"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "product": "Linux",
    "vendor": "Linux",
    "defaultStatus": "affected",
    "repo": "https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git",
    "programFiles": [
      "kernel/workqueue.c"
    ],
    "versions": [
      {
        "version": "6.6",
        "status": "affected"
      },
      {
        "version": "0",
        "lessThan": "6.6",
        "status": "unaffected",
        "versionType": "custom"
      },
      {
        "version": "6.6.31",
        "lessThanOrEqual": "6.6.*",
        "status": "unaffected",
        "versionType": "custom"
      },
      {
        "version": "6.8.10",
        "lessThanOrEqual": "6.8.*",
        "status": "unaffected",
        "versionType": "custom"
      },
      {
        "version": "6.9",
        "lessThanOrEqual": "*",
        "status": "unaffected",
        "versionType": "original_commit_for_fix"
      }
    ]
  }
]