[PATCH v2] epoll: be better about file lifetimes

From: Linus Torvalds
Date: Sun May 05 2024 - 14:00:18 EST


epoll can call out to vfs_poll() with a file pointer that may race with
the last 'fput()'. That would make f_count go down to zero, and while
the ep->mtx locking means that the resulting file pointer tear-down will
be blocked until the poll returns, it means that f_count is already
dead, and any use of it won't actually get a reference to the file any
more: it's dead regardless.

Make sure we have a valid ref on the file pointer before we call down to
vfs_poll() from the epoll routines.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/0000000000002d631f0615918f1e@xxxxxxxxxx/
Reported-by: syzbot+045b454ab35fd82a35fb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Reviewed-by: Jens Axboe <axboe@xxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---

Changes since v1:

- add Link, Reported-by, and Jens' reviewed-by. And sign off on it
because it looks fine to me and we have some testing now.

- move epi_fget() closer to the user

- more comments about the background

- remove the rcu_read_lock(), with the comment explaining why it's not
needed

- note about returning zero rather than something like EPOLLERR|POLLHUP
for a file that is going away

fs/eventpoll.c | 42 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
1 file changed, 41 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/fs/eventpoll.c b/fs/eventpoll.c
index 882b89edc52a..a3f0f868adc4 100644
--- a/fs/eventpoll.c
+++ b/fs/eventpoll.c
@@ -979,6 +979,37 @@ static __poll_t __ep_eventpoll_poll(struct file *file, poll_table *wait, int dep
return res;
}

+/*
+ * The ffd.file pointer may be in the process of
+ * being torn down due to being closed, but we
+ * may not have finished eventpoll_release() yet.
+ *
+ * Normally, even with the atomic_long_inc_not_zero,
+ * the file may have been free'd and then gotten
+ * re-allocated to something else (since files are
+ * not RCU-delayed, they are SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU).
+ *
+ * But for epoll, users hold the ep->mtx mutex, and
+ * as such any file in the process of being free'd
+ * will block in eventpoll_release_file() and thus
+ * the underlying file allocation will not be free'd,
+ * and the file re-use cannot happen.
+ *
+ * For the same reason we can avoid a rcu_read_lock()
+ * around the operation - 'ffd.file' cannot go away
+ * even if the refcount has reached zero (but we must
+ * still not call out to ->poll() functions etc).
+ */
+static struct file *epi_fget(const struct epitem *epi)
+{
+ struct file *file;
+
+ file = epi->ffd.file;
+ if (!atomic_long_inc_not_zero(&file->f_count))
+ file = NULL;
+ return file;
+}
+
/*
* Differs from ep_eventpoll_poll() in that internal callers already have
* the ep->mtx so we need to start from depth=1, such that mutex_lock_nested()
@@ -987,14 +1018,23 @@ static __poll_t __ep_eventpoll_poll(struct file *file, poll_table *wait, int dep
static __poll_t ep_item_poll(const struct epitem *epi, poll_table *pt,
int depth)
{
- struct file *file = epi->ffd.file;
+ struct file *file = epi_fget(epi);
__poll_t res;

+ /*
+ * We could return EPOLLERR | EPOLLHUP or something,
+ * but let's treat this more as "file doesn't exist,
+ * poll didn't happen".
+ */
+ if (!file)
+ return 0;
+
pt->_key = epi->event.events;
if (!is_file_epoll(file))
res = vfs_poll(file, pt);
else
res = __ep_eventpoll_poll(file, pt, depth);
+ fput(file);
return res & epi->event.events;
}

--
2.44.0.330.g4d18c88175