Vulnerability: Race condition in kernel/events/core.c in the Linux kernel before 4.4 allows local users to gain privileges or cause a denial of service (use-after-free) by leveraging incorrect handling of an swevent data structure during a CPU unplug operation.
Vulnerability ID: CVE-2015-8963
CWE: CWE-416
Severity score: 10
Project: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
Published: 2016-11-16
File: kernel/events/core.c
Commit message: perf: Fix race in swevent hash

There's a race on CPU unplug where we free the swevent hash array
while it can still have events on. This will result in a
use-after-free which is BAD.

Simply do not free the hash array on unplug. This leaves the thing
around and no use-after-free takes place.

When the last swevent dies, we do a for_each_possible_cpu() iteration
anyway to clean these up, at which time we'll free it, so no leakage
will occur.

Reported-by: Sasha Levin <sasha.levin@oracle.com>
Tested-by: Sasha Levin <sasha.levin@oracle.com>
Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com>
Cc: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com>
Cc: Jiri Olsa <jolsa@redhat.com>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Stephane Eranian <eranian@google.com>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Vince Weaver <vincent.weaver@maine.edu>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
Commit author: Peter Zijlstra

Vulnerable version (before fix):
 struct swevent_htable {  	/* Recursion avoidance in each contexts */ 	int				recursion[PERF_NR_CONTEXTS];  	/* Keeps track of cpu being initialized/exited */ 	bool				online; };  static DEFINE_PER_CPU(struct swevent_htable, swevent_htable); static int perf_swevent_add(struct perf_event *event, int flags) 	hwc->state = !(flags & PERF_EF_START);  	head = find_swevent_head(swhash, event); 	if (!head) { 		/* 		 * We can race with cpu hotplug code. Do not 		 * WARN if the cpu just got unplugged. 		 */ 		WARN_ON_ONCE(swhash->online); 		return -EINVAL; 	}  	hlist_add_head_rcu(&event->hlist_entry, head); 	perf_event_update_userpage(event); static int swevent_hlist_get_cpu(struct perf_event *event, int cpu) 	int err = 0;  	mutex_lock(&swhash->hlist_mutex);  	if (!swevent_hlist_deref(swhash) && cpu_online(cpu)) { 		struct swevent_hlist *hlist;  static void perf_event_init_cpu(int cpu) 	struct swevent_htable *swhash = &per_cpu(swevent_htable, cpu);  	mutex_lock(&swhash->hlist_mutex); 	swhash->online = true; 	if (swhash->hlist_refcount > 0) { 		struct swevent_hlist *hlist;  static void perf_event_exit_cpu_context(int cpu)  static void perf_event_exit_cpu(int cpu) { 	struct swevent_htable *swhash = &per_cpu(swevent_htable, cpu);  	perf_event_exit_cpu_context(cpu);  	mutex_lock(&swhash->hlist_mutex); 	swhash->online = false; 	swevent_hlist_release(swhash); 	mutex_unlock(&swhash->hlist_mutex); } #else static inline void perf_event_exit_cpu(int cpu) { }

Fixed version (after fix):
 struct swevent_htable {  	/* Recursion avoidance in each contexts */ 	int				recursion[PERF_NR_CONTEXTS]; };  static DEFINE_PER_CPU(struct swevent_htable, swevent_htable); static int perf_swevent_add(struct perf_event *event, int flags) 	hwc->state = !(flags & PERF_EF_START);  	head = find_swevent_head(swhash, event); 	if (WARN_ON_ONCE(!head)) 		return -EINVAL;  	hlist_add_head_rcu(&event->hlist_entry, head); 	perf_event_update_userpage(event); static int swevent_hlist_get_cpu(struct perf_event *event, int cpu) 	int err = 0;  	mutex_lock(&swhash->hlist_mutex); 	if (!swevent_hlist_deref(swhash) && cpu_online(cpu)) { 		struct swevent_hlist *hlist;  static void perf_event_init_cpu(int cpu) 	struct swevent_htable *swhash = &per_cpu(swevent_htable, cpu);  	mutex_lock(&swhash->hlist_mutex); 	if (swhash->hlist_refcount > 0) { 		struct swevent_hlist *hlist;  static void perf_event_exit_cpu_context(int cpu)  static void perf_event_exit_cpu(int cpu) { 	perf_event_exit_cpu_context(cpu); } #else static inline void perf_event_exit_cpu(int cpu) { }

Patch:
patch: @@ -6488,9 +6488,6 @@ struct swevent_htable {
 
 	/* Recursion avoidance in each contexts */
 	int				recursion[PERF_NR_CONTEXTS];
-
-	/* Keeps track of cpu being initialized/exited */
-	bool				online;
 };
 
 static DEFINE_PER_CPU(struct swevent_htable, swevent_htable);
@@ -6748,14 +6745,8 @@ static int perf_swevent_add(struct perf_event *event, int flags)
 	hwc->state = !(flags & PERF_EF_START);
 
 	head = find_swevent_head(swhash, event);
-	if (!head) {
-		/*
-		 * We can race with cpu hotplug code. Do not
-		 * WARN if the cpu just got unplugged.
-		 */
-		WARN_ON_ONCE(swhash->online);
+	if (WARN_ON_ONCE(!head))
 		return -EINVAL;
-	}
 
 	hlist_add_head_rcu(&event->hlist_entry, head);
 	perf_event_update_userpage(event);
@@ -6823,7 +6814,6 @@ static int swevent_hlist_get_cpu(struct perf_event *event, int cpu)
 	int err = 0;
 
 	mutex_lock(&swhash->hlist_mutex);
-
 	if (!swevent_hlist_deref(swhash) && cpu_online(cpu)) {
 		struct swevent_hlist *hlist;
 
@@ -9286,7 +9276,6 @@ static void perf_event_init_cpu(int cpu)
 	struct swevent_htable *swhash = &per_cpu(swevent_htable, cpu);
 
 	mutex_lock(&swhash->hlist_mutex);
-	swhash->online = true;
 	if (swhash->hlist_refcount > 0) {
 		struct swevent_hlist *hlist;
 
@@ -9328,14 +9317,7 @@ static void perf_event_exit_cpu_context(int cpu)
 
 static void perf_event_exit_cpu(int cpu)
 {
-	struct swevent_htable *swhash = &per_cpu(swevent_htable, cpu);
-
 	perf_event_exit_cpu_context(cpu);
-
-	mutex_lock(&swhash->hlist_mutex);
-	swhash->online = false;
-	swevent_hlist_release(swhash);
-	mutex_unlock(&swhash->hlist_mutex);
 }
 #else
 static inline void perf_event_exit_cpu(int cpu) { }
path: kernel/events/core.c