CVE-2016-5195: Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization ('Race Condition') (CWE-362)
value: Race condition in mm/gup.c in the Linux kernel 2.x through 4.x before 4.8.3 allows local users to gain privileges by leveraging incorrect handling of a copy-on-write (COW) feature to write to a read-only memory mapping, as exploited in the wild in October 2016, aka "Dirty COW."
CWE description: The product contains a code sequence that can run concurrently with other code, and the code sequence requires temporary, exclusive access to a shared resource, but a timing window exists in which the shared resource can be modified by another code sequence that is operating concurrently.
CVSS v3 base score: 7.8
Published: 2016-11-10T21:59Z
Repository: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
Language: C
Files changed: include/linux/mm.h, mm/gup.c
Commit date: 2016-10-18 14:13:29 -0700
Commit message: mm: remove gup_flags FOLL_WRITE games from __get_user_pages()

This is an ancient bug that was actually attempted to be fixed once
(badly) by me eleven years ago in commit 4ceb5db9757a ("Fix
get_user_pages() race for write access") but that was then undone due to
problems on s390 by commit f33ea7f404e5 ("fix get_user_pages bug").

In the meantime, the s390 situation has long been fixed, and we can now
fix it by checking the pte_dirty() bit properly (and do it better).  The
s390 dirty bit was implemented in abf09bed3cce ("s390/mm: implement
software dirty bits") which made it into v3.9.  Earlier kernels will
have to look at the page state itself.

Also, the VM has become more scalable, and what used a purely
theoretical race back then has become easier to trigger.

To fix it, we introduce a new internal FOLL_COW flag to mark the "yes,
we already did a COW" rather than play racy games with FOLL_WRITE that
is very fundamental, and then use the pte dirty flag to validate that
the FOLL_COW flag is still valid.

Reported-and-tested-by: Phil "not Paul" Oester <kernel@linuxace.com>
Acked-by: Hugh Dickins <hughd@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Cc: Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu>
Cc: Nick Piggin <npiggin@gmail.com>
Cc: Greg Thelen <gthelen@google.com>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

Diff: diff --git a/include/linux/mm.h b/include/linux/mm.h
index e9caec6a51e97..ed85879f47f5f 100644
--- a/include/linux/mm.h
+++ b/include/linux/mm.h
@@ -2230,10 +2230,11 @@ static inline struct page *follow_page(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
 #define FOLL_NUMA	0x200	/* force NUMA hinting page fault */
 #define FOLL_MIGRATION	0x400	/* wait for page to replace migration entry */
 #define FOLL_TRIED	0x800	/* a retry, previous pass started an IO */
 #define FOLL_MLOCK	0x1000	/* lock present pages */
 #define FOLL_REMOTE	0x2000	/* we are working on non-current tsk/mm */
+#define FOLL_COW	0x4000	/* internal GUP flag */
 
 typedef int (*pte_fn_t)(pte_t *pte, pgtable_t token, unsigned long addr,
 			void *data);
 extern int apply_to_page_range(struct mm_struct *mm, unsigned long address,
 			       unsigned long size, pte_fn_t fn, void *data);
diff --git a/mm/gup.c b/mm/gup.c
index 96b2b2fd0fbd1..22cc22e7432f6 100644
--- a/mm/gup.c
+++ b/mm/gup.c
@@ -58,10 +58,20 @@ static int follow_pfn_pte(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long address,
 
 	/* Proper page table entry exists, but no corresponding struct page */
 	return -EEXIST;
 }
 
+/*
+ * FOLL_FORCE can write to even unwritable pte's, but only
+ * after we've gone through a COW cycle and they are dirty.
+ */
+static inline bool can_follow_write_pte(pte_t pte, unsigned int flags)
+{
+	return pte_write(pte) ||
+		((flags & FOLL_FORCE) && (flags & FOLL_COW) && pte_dirty(pte));
+}
+
 static struct page *follow_page_pte(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
 		unsigned long address, pmd_t *pmd, unsigned int flags)
 {
 	struct mm_struct *mm = vma->vm_mm;
 	struct dev_pagemap *pgmap = NULL;
@@ -93,11 +103,11 @@ static struct page *follow_page_pte(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
 		migration_entry_wait(mm, pmd, address);
 		goto retry;
 	}
 	if ((flags & FOLL_NUMA) && pte_protnone(pte))
 		goto no_page;
-	if ((flags & FOLL_WRITE) && !pte_write(pte)) {
+	if ((flags & FOLL_WRITE) && !can_follow_write_pte(pte, flags)) {
 		pte_unmap_unlock(ptep, ptl);
 		return NULL;
 	}
 
 	page = vm_normal_page(vma, address, pte);
@@ -410,11 +420,11 @@ static int faultin_page(struct task_struct *tsk, struct vm_area_struct *vma,
 	 * userspace may also be wanting to write to the gotten user page,
 	 * which a read fault here might prevent (a readonly page might get
 	 * reCOWed by userspace write).
 	 */
 	if ((ret & VM_FAULT_WRITE) && !(vma->vm_flags & VM_WRITE))
-		*flags &= ~FOLL_WRITE;
+	        *flags |= FOLL_COW;
 	return 0;
 }
 
 static int check_vma_flags(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long gup_flags)
 {

Vulnerable code: 	if ((flags & FOLL_WRITE) && !pte_write(pte)) {
		*flags &= ~FOLL_WRITE;
Fixed code: #define FOLL_COW	0x4000	/* internal GUP flag */
/*
 * FOLL_FORCE can write to even unwritable pte's, but only
 * after we've gone through a COW cycle and they are dirty.
 */
static inline bool can_follow_write_pte(pte_t pte, unsigned int flags)
{
	return pte_write(pte) ||
		((flags & FOLL_FORCE) && (flags & FOLL_COW) && pte_dirty(pte));
}

	if ((flags & FOLL_WRITE) && !can_follow_write_pte(pte, flags)) {
	        *flags |= FOLL_COW;