From: "Cen Zhang (Microsoft)" <blbllhy@gmail.com>
To: brauner@kernel.org
Cc: oleg@redhat.com, jack@suse.cz, avagin@gmail.com,
ptikhomirov@virtuozzo.com, mjguzik@gmail.com,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
AutonomousCodeSecurity@microsoft.com,
tgopinath@linux.microsoft.com, kys@microsoft.com,
blbllhy@gmail.com
Subject: [PATCH] pid: fix cad_pid use-after-free race in proc_do_cad_pid()
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2026 17:01:43 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260717210143.4734-1-blbllhy@gmail.com> (raw)
proc_do_cad_pid() reads the global cad_pid pointer and passes it to
pid_vnr() without protecting the lifetime of the referenced struct pid.
A concurrent writer can replace cad_pid and drop the final reference to
the old struct pid after the reader has loaded the pointer but before
pid_vnr() has finished dereferencing it, causing a use-after-free.
Fix this by wrapping the read side in an RCU read-side critical section
and waiting for a grace period before dropping the old cad_pid reference
on the write side. Do not use call_rcu(&old_pid->rcu, ...) here:
struct pid::rcu is already used by free_pid(), so queueing it again can
corrupt the RCU callback list.
KASAN crash stack:
kernel/pid.c:545 pid_nr_ns() # reads freed pid->level
kernel/pid.c:556 pid_vnr()
kernel/pid.c:775 proc_do_cad_pid()
fs/proc/proc_sysctl.c proc_sys_call_handler()
fs/read_write.c vfs_read()
fs/read_write.c __x64_sys_pread64()
Fixes: 9ec52099e4b8 ("[PATCH] replace cad_pid by a struct pid")
Reported-by: AutonomousCodeSecurity@microsoft.com
Signed-off-by: Cen Zhang (Microsoft) <blbllhy@gmail.com>
---
kernel/pid.c | 8 +++++++-
1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/kernel/pid.c b/kernel/pid.c
index f55189a3d07d..fee62b2c0c7b 100644
--- a/kernel/pid.c
+++ b/kernel/pid.c
@@ -768,11 +768,15 @@ static int proc_do_cad_pid(const struct ctl_table *table, int write, void *buffe
size_t *lenp, loff_t *ppos)
{
struct pid *new_pid;
+ struct pid *old_pid;
pid_t tmp_pid;
int r;
struct ctl_table tmp_table = *table;
+ rcu_read_lock();
tmp_pid = pid_vnr(cad_pid);
+ rcu_read_unlock();
+
tmp_table.data = &tmp_pid;
r = proc_dointvec(&tmp_table, write, buffer, lenp, ppos);
@@ -783,7 +787,9 @@ static int proc_do_cad_pid(const struct ctl_table *table, int write, void *buffe
if (!new_pid)
return -ESRCH;
- put_pid(xchg(&cad_pid, new_pid));
+ old_pid = xchg(&cad_pid, new_pid);
+ synchronize_rcu();
+ put_pid(old_pid);
return 0;
}
--
2.53.0
next reply other threads:[~2026-07-17 21:01 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-07-17 21:01 Cen Zhang (Microsoft) [this message]
2026-07-17 21:35 ` Mateusz Guzik
2026-07-17 23:14 ` Bradley Morgan
2026-07-18 1:33 ` Cen Zhang (Microsoft)
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