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prionPRIOn knowledge basePRION:CVE-2021-46988
HistoryFeb 28, 2024 - 9:15 a.m.

Spoofing

2024-02-2809:15:00
PRIOn knowledge base
www.prio-n.com
2
linux kernel
vulnerability
userfaultfd
error path
shmem_mfill_atomic_pte
copy_from_user
tmpfs
bug_on

7 High

AI Score

Confidence

Low

0.0004 Low

EPSS

Percentile

10.4%

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

userfaultfd: release page in error path to avoid BUG_ON

Consider the following sequence of events:

  1. Userspace issues a UFFD ioctl, which ends up calling into
    shmem_mfill_atomic_pte(). We successfully account the blocks, we
    shmem_alloc_page(), but then the copy_from_user() fails. We return
    -ENOENT. We don’t release the page we allocated.
  2. Our caller detects this error code, tries the copy_from_user() after
    dropping the mmap_lock, and retries, calling back into
    shmem_mfill_atomic_pte().
  3. Meanwhile, let’s say another process filled up the tmpfs being used.
  4. So shmem_mfill_atomic_pte() fails to account blocks this time, and
    immediately returns - without releasing the page.

This triggers a BUG_ON in our caller, which asserts that the page
should always be consumed, unless -ENOENT is returned.

To fix this, detect if we have such a “dangling” page when accounting
fails, and if so, release it before returning.

7 High

AI Score

Confidence

Low

0.0004 Low

EPSS

Percentile

10.4%