CVE-2012-2100 (published 2012-07-03T16:40Z)

The ext4_fill_flex_info function in fs/ext4/super.c in the Linux kernel before 3.2.2, on the x86 platform and unspecified other platforms, allows user-assisted remote attackers to trigger inconsistent filesystem-groups data and possibly cause a denial of service via a malformed ext4 filesystem containing a super block with a large FLEX_BG group size (aka s_log_groups_per_flex value).  NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2009-4307.

Severity: HIGH
CVSS v2 base score: 7.1 (AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C)

Weakness information:
cwe_id: CWE-189
cwe_name: Numeric Errors
description: Weaknesses in this category are related to improper calculation or conversion of numbers.

Fix information:
repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
commit_details: repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
author: Xi Wang
author_date: 2012-01-10 11:51:10-05:00
msg: ext4: fix undefined behavior in ext4_fill_flex_info()

Commit 503358ae01b70ce6909d19dd01287093f6b6271c ("ext4: avoid divide by
zero when trying to mount a corrupted file system") fixes CVE-2009-4307
by performing a sanity check on s_log_groups_per_flex, since it can be
set to a bogus value by an attacker.

	sbi->s_log_groups_per_flex = sbi->s_es->s_log_groups_per_flex;
	groups_per_flex = 1 << sbi->s_log_groups_per_flex;

	if (groups_per_flex < 2) { ... }

This patch fixes two potential issues in the previous commit.

1) The sanity check might only work on architectures like PowerPC.
On x86, 5 bits are used for the shifting amount.  That means, given a
large s_log_groups_per_flex value like 36, groups_per_flex = 1 << 36
is essentially 1 << 4 = 16, rather than 0.  This will bypass the check,
leaving s_log_groups_per_flex and groups_per_flex inconsistent.

2) The sanity check relies on undefined behavior, i.e., oversized shift.
A standard-confirming C compiler could rewrite the check in unexpected
ways.  Consider the following equivalent form, assuming groups_per_flex
is unsigned for simplicity.

	groups_per_flex = 1 << sbi->s_log_groups_per_flex;
	if (groups_per_flex == 0 || groups_per_flex == 1) {

We compile the code snippet using Clang 3.0 and GCC 4.6.  Clang will
completely optimize away the check groups_per_flex == 0, leaving the
patched code as vulnerable as the original.  GCC keeps the check, but
there is no guarantee that future versions will do the same.

Signed-off-by: Xi Wang <xi.wang@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
repository: repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
repo_name: torvalds/linux
description: Linux kernel source tree
repo_language: C
owner: torvalds
file_changes: filename: super.c
change_type: ModificationType.MODIFY
diff: @@ -2006,17 +2006,16 @@ static int ext4_fill_flex_info(struct super_block *sb)
 	struct ext4_group_desc *gdp = NULL;
 	ext4_group_t flex_group_count;
 	ext4_group_t flex_group;
-	int groups_per_flex = 0;
+	unsigned int groups_per_flex = 0;
 	size_t size;
 	int i;
 
 	sbi->s_log_groups_per_flex = sbi->s_es->s_log_groups_per_flex;
-	groups_per_flex = 1 << sbi->s_log_groups_per_flex;
-
-	if (groups_per_flex < 2) {
+	if (sbi->s_log_groups_per_flex < 1 || sbi->s_log_groups_per_flex > 31) {
 		sbi->s_log_groups_per_flex = 0;
 		return 1;
 	}
+	groups_per_flex = 1 << sbi->s_log_groups_per_flex;
 
 	/* We allocate both existing and potentially added groups */
 	flex_group_count = ((sbi->s_groups_count + groups_per_flex - 1) +

programming_language: C