Re: [PATCH v2] zram: fix use-after-free in zram_writeback_endio
From: Sergey Senozhatsky
Date: Fri May 08 2026 - 22:18:39 EST
On (26/05/08 08:49), Richard Chang wrote:
> A crash was observed in zram_writeback_endio due to a NULL pointer
> dereference in wake_up. The root cause is a race condition between the
> bio completion handler (zram_writeback_endio) and the writeback task.
>
> In zram_writeback_endio, wake_up() is called on &wb_ctl->done_wait after
> releasing wb_ctl->done_lock. This creates a race window where the
> writeback task can see num_inflight become 0, return, and free wb_ctl
> before zram_writeback_endio calls wake_up().
>
> CPU 0 (zram_writeback_endio) CPU 1 (writeback_store)
> ============================ ============================
> zram_writeback_slots
> zram_submit_wb_request
> zram_submit_wb_request
> wait_event(wb_ctl->done_wait)
> spin_lock(&wb_ctl->done_lock);
> list_add(&req->entry, &wb_ctl->done_reqs);
> spin_unlock(&wb_ctl->done_lock);
> wake_up(&wb_ctl->done_wait);
> zram_complete_done_reqs
> spin_lock(&wb_ctl->done_lock);
> list_add(&req->entry, &wb_ctl->done_reqs);
> spin_unlock(&wb_ctl->done_lock);
> while (num_inflight) > 0)
> spin_lock(&wb_ctl->done_lock);
> list_del(&req->entry);
> spin_unlock(&wb_ctl->done_lock);
> // num_inflight becomes 0
> atomic_dec(num_inflight);
>
> // Leave zram_writeback_slots
> // Free wb_ctl
> release_wb_ctl(wb_ctl);
> // UAF crash!
> wake_up(&wb_ctl->done_wait);
>
> This patch fixes this race by using RCU. By protecting wb_ctl with
> rcu_read_lock() in zram_writeback_endio and using kfree_rcu() to free
> it, we ensure that wb_ctl remains valid during the execution of
> zram_writeback_endio.
>
> Fixes: f405066a1f0d ("zram: introduce writeback bio batching")
> Suggested-by: Sergey Senozhatsky <senozhatsky@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Suggested-by: Minchan Kim <minchan@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Richard Chang <richardycc@xxxxxxxxxx>
Acked-by: Sergey Senozhatsky <senozhatsky@xxxxxxxxxxxx>