5.5 - CVE-2024-44952

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

driver core: Fix uevent_show() vs driver detach race

uevent_show() wants to de-reference dev->driver->name. There is no clean way for a device attribute to de-reference dev->driver unless that attribute is defined via (struct device_driver).dev_groups. Instead, the anti-pattern of taking the device_lock() in the attribute handler risks deadlocks with code paths that remove device attributes while holding the lock.

This deadlock is typically invisible to lockdep given the device_lock() is marked lockdep_set_novalidate_class(), but some subsystems allocate a local lockdep key for @dev->mutex to reveal reports of the form:

======================================================
WARNING: possible circular locking dependency detected
6.10.0-rc7+ #275 Tainted: G OE N
------------------------------------------------------
modprobe/2374 is trying to acquire lock:
ffff8c2270070de0 (kn->active#6){++++}-{0:0}, at: __kernfs_remove+0xde/0x220

but task is already holding lock:
ffff8c22016e88f8 (&cxl_root_key){+.+.}-{3:3}, at: device_release_driver_internal+0x39/0x210

which lock already depends on the new lock.

the existing dependency chain (in reverse order) is:

-> #1 (&cxl_root_key){+.+.}-{3:3}:
__mutex_lock+0x99/0xc30
uevent_show+0xac/0x130
dev_attr_show+0x18/0x40
sysfs_kf_seq_show+0xac/0xf0
seq_read_iter+0x110/0x450
vfs_read+0x25b/0x340
ksys_read+0x67/0xf0
do_syscall_64+0x75/0x190
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e

-> #0 (kn->active#6){++++}-{0:0}:
__lock_acquire+0x121a/0x1fa0
lock_acquire+0xd6/0x2e0
kernfs_drain+0x1e9/0x200
__kernfs_remove+0xde/0x220
kernfs_remove_by_name_ns+0x5e/0xa0
device_del+0x168/0x410
device_unregister+0x13/0x60
devres_release_all+0xb8/0x110
device_unbind_cleanup+0xe/0x70
device_release_driver_internal+0x1c7/0x210
driver_detach+0x47/0x90
bus_remove_driver+0x6c/0xf0
cxl_acpi_exit+0xc/0x11 [cxl_acpi]
__do_sys_delete_module.isra.0+0x181/0x260
do_syscall_64+0x75/0x190
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e

The observation though is that driver objects are typically much longer lived than device objects. It is reasonable to perform lockless de-reference of a @driver pointer even if it is racing detach from a device. Given the infrequency of driver unregistration, use synchronize_rcu() in module_remove_driver() to close any potential races. It is potentially overkill to suffer synchronize_rcu() just to handle the rare module removal racing uevent_show() event.

Thanks to Tetsuo Handa for the debug analysis of the syzbot report [1].