CVE-2021-47011 mm: memcontrol: slab: fix obtain a reference to a freeing memcg
A use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel memory control subsystem allows attackers to cause a denial of service.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2021-47011?
CVE-2021-47011 is a high-severity use after free vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 28 Feb 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
mm: memcontrol: slab: fix obtain a reference to a freeing memcg
Patch series "Use obj_cgroup APIs to charge kmem pages", v5.
Since Roman's series "The new cgroup slab memory controller" applied. All slab objects are charged with the new APIs of obj_cgroup. The new APIs introduce a struct obj_cgroup to charge slab objects. It prevents long-living objects from pinning the original memory cgroup in the memory. But there are still some corner objects (e.g. allocations larger than order-1 page on SLUB) which are not charged with the new APIs. Those objects (include the pages which are allocated from buddy allocator directly) are charged as kmem pages which still hold a reference to the memory cgroup.
E.g. We know that the kernel stack is charged as kmem pages because the size of the kernel stack can be greater than 2 pages (e.g. 16KB on x86_64 or arm64). If we create a thread (suppose the thread stack is charged to memory cgroup A) and then move it from memory cgroup A to memory cgroup B. Because the kernel stack of the thread hold a reference to the memory cgroup A. The thread can pin the memory cgroup A in the memory even if we remove the cgroup A. If we want to see this scenario by using the following script. We can see that the system has added 500 dying cgroups (This is not a real world issue, just a script to show that the large kmallocs are charged as kmem pages which can pin the memory cgroup in the memory).
#!/bin/bash
cat /proc/cgroups | grep memory
cd /sys/fs/cgroup/memory echo 1 > memory.move_charge_at_immigrate
for i in range{1..500} do mkdir kmem_test echo $$ > kmem_test/cgroup.procs sleep 3600 & echo $$ > cgroup.procs echo `cat kmem_test/cgroup.procs` > cgroup.procs rmdir kmem_test done
cat /proc/cgroups | grep memory
This patchset aims to make those kmem pages to drop the reference to memory cgroup by using the APIs of obj_cgroup. Finally, we can see that the number of the dying cgroups will not increase if we run the above test script.
This patch (of 7):
The rcu_read_lock/unlock only can guarantee that the memcg will not be freed, but it cannot guarantee the success of css_get (which is in the refill_stock when cached memcg changed) to memcg.
rcu_read_lock() memcg = obj_cgroup_memcg(old) __memcg_kmem_uncharge(memcg) refill_stock(memcg) if (stock->cached != memcg) // css_get can change the ref counter from 0 back to 1. css_get(&memcg->css) rcu_read_unlock()
This fix is very like the commit:
eefbfa7fd678 ("mm: memcg/slab: fix use after free in obj_cgroup_charge")
Fix this by holding a reference to the memcg which is passed to the __memcg_kmem_uncharge() before calling __memcg_kmem_uncharge().
Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-47011?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2021-47011?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.
Is CVE-2021-47011 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-47011 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47011, GHSA-jvv7-jhh3-m96v, UBUNTU-CVE-2021-47011.