[PATCH v2] i2c: i801: keep the byte-by-byte ISR buffer private to the driver

From: Weiming Shi

Date: Sat Jul 18 2026 - 05:03:43 EST


For interrupt-driven byte-by-byte block transfers,
i801_block_transaction_byte_by_byte() points priv->data at the caller's
union i2c_smbus_data and lets the BYTE_DONE interrupt handler
i801_isr_byte_done() fill or drain it one byte at a time. In the i2c-dev
ioctl path that buffer lives on the caller's kernel (vmap) stack.

On a wait_for_completion_timeout() the transfer thread returns -ETIMEDOUT
without fencing the interrupt, and a BYTE_DONE that is still in flight or
fires later then writes a byte through priv->data
(priv->data[priv->count++] = inb(...)) after the caller has returned and
its vmap stack has been freed:

BUG: KASAN: stack-out-of-bounds in i801_isr
Write of size 1 at addr ffffc90002a2fda9 by task exploit/5144
<IRQ>
i801_isr_byte_done drivers/i2c/busses/i2c-i801.c:546 [inlined]
i801_isr drivers/i2c/busses/i2c-i801.c:613
__handle_irq_event_percpu kernel/irq/handle.c:158
handle_irq_event kernel/irq/handle.c:195
handle_fasteoi_irq kernel/irq/chip.c:661
__common_interrupt arch/x86/kernel/irq.c:263
common_interrupt arch/x86/kernel/irq.c:240
</IRQ>
The buggy address belongs to a freed vmap kernel stack (task exploit),
created by kernel_clone -> copy_process.

The completion-based paths (i801_transaction(),
i801_block_transaction_by_block()) never expose the caller's buffer to the
handler: they copy to/from the hardware block buffer in process context
and use the interrupt only to signal completion. Give the byte-by-byte
path the same property. The handler now fills a driver-private buffer
(priv->data_buf); the transfer copies the caller's data in before starting
and copies the result back out on success, so a late or spurious BYTE_DONE
can only ever touch driver-owned memory. i801_block_transaction() already
bounds data->block[0] to I2C_SMBUS_BLOCK_MAX, so the buffer cannot overflow.

Fixes: d3ff6ce40031 ("i2c-i801: Enable IRQ for byte_by_byte transactions")
Reported-by: Xiang Mei <xmei5@xxxxxxx>
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8
Signed-off-by: Weiming Shi <bestswngs@xxxxxxxxx>
---
Changes in v2:
- Fix the author: From/Signed-off-by. No code change.

drivers/i2c/busses/i2c-i801.c | 18 ++++++++++++++++--
1 file changed, 16 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/drivers/i2c/busses/i2c-i801.c b/drivers/i2c/busses/i2c-i801.c
index c8cb5ed55..37741fdca 100644
--- a/drivers/i2c/busses/i2c-i801.c
+++ b/drivers/i2c/busses/i2c-i801.c
@@ -279,6 +279,9 @@ struct i801_priv {
int count;
int len;
u8 *data;
+ /* Driver-private buffer the isr fills/drains, so a late interrupt
+ * never dereferences a pointer into the caller's block buffer. */
+ u8 data_buf[I2C_SMBUS_BLOCK_MAX + 2];

#if IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_I2C_MUX_GPIO) && defined CONFIG_DMI
const struct i801_mux_config *mux_drvdata;
@@ -671,12 +674,23 @@ static int i801_block_transaction_byte_by_byte(struct i801_priv *priv,
priv->cmd = smbcmd | SMBHSTCNT_INTREN;
priv->len = len;
priv->count = 0;
- priv->data = &data->block[1];
+ /*
+ * The interrupt handler fills or drains this buffer
+ * asynchronously and may still run after a timeout, so keep it
+ * in driver-private storage instead of pointing into the
+ * caller's block buffer, which is freed once we return.
+ */
+ memcpy(priv->data_buf, data->block, len + 1);
+ priv->data = &priv->data_buf[1];

reinit_completion(&priv->done);
outb_p(priv->cmd | SMBHSTCNT_START, SMBHSTCNT(priv));
result = wait_for_completion_timeout(&priv->done, adap->timeout);
- return result ? priv->status : -ETIMEDOUT;
+ if (!result)
+ return -ETIMEDOUT;
+ if (priv->is_read)
+ memcpy(data->block, priv->data_buf, priv->len + 1);
+ return priv->status;
}

for (i = 1; i <= len; i++) {
--
2.43.0