CVE: CVE-2024-56788
Published: 2025-01-11
Description: In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net: ethernet: oa_tc6: fix tx skb race condition between reference pointers

There are two skb pointers to manage tx skb's enqueued from n/w stack.
waiting_tx_skb pointer points to the tx skb which needs to be processed
and ongoing_tx_skb pointer points to the tx skb which is being processed.

SPI thread prepares the tx data chunks from the tx skb pointed by the
ongoing_tx_skb pointer. When the tx skb pointed by the ongoing_tx_skb is
processed, the tx skb pointed by the waiting_tx_skb is assigned to
ongoing_tx_skb and the waiting_tx_skb pointer is assigned with NULL.
Whenever there is a new tx skb from n/w stack, it will be assigned to
waiting_tx_skb pointer if it is NULL. Enqueuing and processing of a tx skb
handled in two different threads.

Consider a scenario where the SPI thread processed an ongoing_tx_skb and
it moves next tx skb from waiting_tx_skb pointer to ongoing_tx_skb pointer
without doing any NULL check. At this time, if the waiting_tx_skb pointer
is NULL then ongoing_tx_skb pointer is also assigned with NULL. After
that, if a new tx skb is assigned to waiting_tx_skb pointer by the n/w
stack and there is a chance to overwrite the tx skb pointer with NULL in
the SPI thread. Finally one of the tx skb will be left as unhandled,
resulting packet missing and memory leak.

- Consider the below scenario where the TXC reported from the previous
transfer is 10 and ongoing_tx_skb holds an tx ethernet frame which can be
transported in 20 TXCs and waiting_tx_skb is still NULL.
	tx_credits = 10; /* 21 are filled in the previous transfer */
	ongoing_tx_skb = 20;
	waiting_tx_skb = NULL; /* Still NULL */
- So, (tc6->ongoing_tx_skb || tc6->waiting_tx_skb) becomes true.
- After oa_tc6_prepare_spi_tx_buf_for_tx_skbs()
	ongoing_tx_skb = 10;
	waiting_tx_skb = NULL; /* Still NULL */
- Perform SPI transfer.
- Process SPI rx buffer to get the TXC from footers.
- Now let's assume previously filled 21 TXCs are freed so we are good to
transport the next remaining 10 tx chunks from ongoing_tx_skb.
	tx_credits = 21;
	ongoing_tx_skb = 10;
	waiting_tx_skb = NULL;
- So, (tc6->ongoing_tx_skb || tc6->waiting_tx_skb) becomes true again.
- In the oa_tc6_prepare_spi_tx_buf_for_tx_skbs()
	ongoing_tx_skb = NULL;
	waiting_tx_skb = NULL;

- Now the below bad case might happen,

Thread1 (oa_tc6_start_xmit)	Thread2 (oa_tc6_spi_thread_handler)
---------------------------	-----------------------------------
- if waiting_tx_skb is NULL
				- if ongoing_tx_skb is NULL
				- ongoing_tx_skb = waiting_tx_skb
- waiting_tx_skb = skb
				- waiting_tx_skb = NULL
				...
				- ongoing_tx_skb = NULL
- if waiting_tx_skb is NULL
- waiting_tx_skb = skb

To overcome the above issue, protect the moving of tx skb reference from
waiting_tx_skb pointer to ongoing_tx_skb pointer and assigning new tx skb
to waiting_tx_skb pointer, so that the other thread can't access the
waiting_tx_skb pointer until the current thread completes moving the tx
skb reference safely.
CVSS Score: 4.7 (MEDIUM)
CWE: CWE-362
References: https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1f2eb6c32bae04b375bb7a0aedbeefb6dbbcb775; https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e592b5110b3e9393881b0a019d86832bbf71a47f