Re: [PATCH] ipv4: Delete uncached routes upon unregistration of loopback device.

[Eric Dumazet]

On 5/4/19 10:52 AM, Tetsuo Handa wrote:
> syzbot is hitting infinite loop when a loopback device in a namespace is
> unregistered [1]. This is because rt_flush_dev() is moving the refcount of
> "any device to unregister" to "a loopback device in that namespace" but
> nobody can drop the refcount moved from non loopback devices when the
> loopback device in that namespace is unregistered.
> 
> This behavior was introduced by commit caacf05e5ad1abf0 ("ipv4: Properly
> purge netdev references on uncached routes.") but there is no description
> why we have to temporarily move the refcount to "a loopback device in that
> namespace" and why it is safe to do so, for rt_flush_dev() becomes a no-op
> when "a loopback device in that namespace" is about to be unregistered.
> 
> Since I don't know the reason, this patch breaks the infinite loop by
> deleting the uncached route (which eventually drops the refcount via
> dst_destroy()) when "a loopback device in that namespace" is unregistered
> rather than when "non-loopback devices in that namespace" is unregistered.

Well, you have not fixed a bug, you simply made sure that whatever cpu is using the
routes you forcibly deleted is going to crash the host very soon (use-after-frees have
undefined behavior, but KASAN should crash most of the times)

Please do not send patches like that with a huge CC list, keep networking patches
to netdev mailing list.

Mahesh has an alternative patch, adding a fake device that can not be dismantled
to make sure we fully intercept skbs sent through a dead route, instead of relying
on loopback dropping them later at some point.