Re: [PATCH v2] char: xillybus: Prevent use-after-free due to race condition

[Alan Stern]

On Sun, Oct 30, 2022 at 11:42:09AM +0200, Eli Billauer wrote:
> The driver for XillyUSB devices maintains a kref reference count on each
> xillyusb_dev structure, which represents a physical device. This reference
> count reaches zero when the device has been disconnected and there are no
> open file descriptors that are related to the device. When this occurs,
> kref_put() calls cleanup_dev(), which clears up the device's data,
> including the structure itself.
> 
> However, when xillyusb_open() is called, this reference count becomes
> tricky: This function needs to obtain the xillyusb_dev structure that
> relates to the inode's major and minor (as there can be several such).
> xillybus_find_inode() (which is defined in xillybus_class.c) is called
> for this purpose. xillybus_find_inode() holds a mutex that is global in
> xillybus_class.c to protect the list of devices, and releases this
> mutex before returning. As a result, nothing protects the xillyusb_dev's
> reference counter from being decremented to zero before xillyusb_open()
> increments it on its own behalf. Hence the structure can be freed
> due to a rare race condition.
> 
> To solve this, a mutex is added. It is locked by xillyusb_open() before
> the call to xillybus_find_inode() and is released only after the kref
> counter has been incremented on behalf of the newly opened inode. This
> protects the kref reference counters of all xillyusb_dev structs from
> being decremented by xillyusb_disconnect() during this time segment, as
> the call to kref_put() in this function is done with the same lock held.
> 
> There is no need to hold the lock on other calls to kref_put(), because
> if xillybus_find_inode() finds a struct, xillyusb_disconnect() has not
> made the call to remove it, and hence not made its call to kref_put(),
> which takes place afterwards. Hence preventing xillyusb_disconnect's
> call to kref_put() is enough to ensure that the reference doesn't reach
> zero before it's incremented by xillyusb_open().
> 
> It would have been more natural to increment the reference count in
> xillybus_find_inode() of course, however this function is also called by
> Xillybus' driver for PCIe / OF, which registers a completely different
> structure. Therefore, xillybus_find_inode() treats these structures as
> void pointers, and accordingly can't make any changes.
> 
> Reported-by: Hyunwoo Kim <imv4bel@xxxxxxxxx>
> Suggested-by: Alan Stern <stern@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Eli Billauer <eli.billauer@xxxxxxxxx>

It looks like the xillybus driver already has a private mutex that would 
have been very well suited for this task: unit_mutex defined in 
xillybus_class.c.  Of course, there's nothing wrong with using a new 
mutex instead -- just make sure there aren't any ABBA locking order 
problems.

Alan Stern