Re: [PATCH 2/3] audit: fix refcounting in audit-tree

From: Eric Paris
Date: Fri Jul 06 2012 - 14:13:24 EST


On Mon, 2012-06-25 at 19:46 +0200, Miklos Szeredi wrote:
> From: Miklos Szeredi <mszeredi@xxxxxxx>
>
> Refcounting of fsnotify_mark in audit tree is broken. E.g:
>
> refcount
> create_chunk
> alloc_chunk 1
> fsnotify_add_mark 2
>
> untag_chunk
> fsnotify_get_mark 3
> fsnotify_destroy_mark
> audit_tree_freeing_mark 2
> fsnotify_put_mark 1
> fsnotify_put_mark 0
> via destroy_list
> fsnotify_mark_destroy -1
>
> This was reported by various people as triggering Oops when stopping auditd.
>
> We could just remove the put_mark from audit_tree_freeing_mark() but that would
> break freeing via inode destruction. So this patch simply omits a put_mark
> after calling destroy_mark (or adds a get_mark before).
>
> Next patch will clean up the remaining mess.
>
> Signed-off-by: Miklos Szeredi <mszeredi@xxxxxxx>
> CC: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Agreed this is needed. My changelog was:

audit: fix ref count problems in audit trees

Before the switch from in kernel inotify to fsnotify for audit trees the
code regularly did:
inotify_evict_watch(&chunk->watch);
put_inotify_watch(&chunk->watch);

I translated this in fsnotify_speak into:
fsnotify_destroy_mark_by_entry(chunk_entry);
fsnotify_put_mark(chunk_entry);

The problem is that the inotify_evict_watch function actually took a
reference on chunk->watch, which is what was being dropped by
put_inotify_watch(). The fsnotify code does not take such a reference
during fsnotify_destroy_mark_by_entry(). Thus we are dropping reference
counts prematurely and eventually we hit a use after free! Whoops!

Fix these call sites to not drop the extra reference.

Reported-by: Valentin Avram <aval13@xxxxxxxxx>
Reported-by: Peter Moody <pmoody@xxxxxxxxxx>
Partial-patch-by: Marcelo Cerri <mhcerri@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Eric Paris <eparis@xxxxxxxxxx>

Maybe you can use some of that changelog in your next post? (If you do
one?) The only reason you would repost is because I don't understand
why you took a ref in some places instead of just not dropping it
everywhere...

> ---
> kernel/audit_tree.c | 5 ++---
> 1 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/kernel/audit_tree.c b/kernel/audit_tree.c
> index d52d247..31fdc48 100644
> --- a/kernel/audit_tree.c
> +++ b/kernel/audit_tree.c
> @@ -250,7 +250,6 @@ static void untag_chunk(struct node *p)
> spin_unlock(&hash_lock);
> spin_unlock(&entry->lock);
> fsnotify_destroy_mark(entry);
> - fsnotify_put_mark(entry);
> goto out;
> }
>
> @@ -293,7 +292,6 @@ static void untag_chunk(struct node *p)
> spin_unlock(&hash_lock);
> spin_unlock(&entry->lock);
> fsnotify_destroy_mark(entry);
> - fsnotify_put_mark(entry);
> goto out;
>
> Fallback:
> @@ -332,6 +330,7 @@ static int create_chunk(struct inode *inode, struct audit_tree *tree)
> spin_unlock(&hash_lock);
> chunk->dead = 1;
> spin_unlock(&entry->lock);
> + fsnotify_get_mark(entry);
> fsnotify_destroy_mark(entry);
> fsnotify_put_mark(entry);
> return 0;

Like here? Why not just avoid the atomic op altogether?

> @@ -412,6 +411,7 @@ static int tag_chunk(struct inode *inode, struct audit_tree *tree)
> spin_unlock(&chunk_entry->lock);
> spin_unlock(&old_entry->lock);
>
> + fsnotify_get_mark(chunk_entry);
> fsnotify_destroy_mark(chunk_entry);
>
> fsnotify_put_mark(chunk_entry);
> @@ -445,7 +445,6 @@ static int tag_chunk(struct inode *inode, struct audit_tree *tree)
> spin_unlock(&old_entry->lock);
> fsnotify_destroy_mark(old_entry);
> fsnotify_put_mark(old_entry); /* pair to fsnotify_find mark_entry */
> - fsnotify_put_mark(old_entry); /* and kill it */
> return 0;
> }
>


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