Re: [PATCH v4] reboot: fix cad_pid use-after-free race

[Pavel Tikhomirov <ptikhomirov@virtuozzo.com>]

Reviewed-by: Pavel Tikhomirov <ptikhomirov@virtuozzo.com>

On 8/14/26 06:09, Cen Zhang (Microsoft) wrote:
> cad_pid is a single kernel-wide struct pid pointer. proc_do_cad_pid()
> reads it 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.
> 
> kill_cad_pid() has the same lifetime race when it passes cad_pid to
> kill_pid().
> 
> At the time this issue was reported, an unprivileged user could reach the
> sysctl through user and PID namespaces because cad_pid was registered in
> pid_table[]. Moving cad_pid back to the global reboot sysctl table
> corrected that namespace and permission mismatch, but did not fix the
> underlying lifetime race.
> 
> Fix this by treating cad_pid as an RCU-protected pointer at both read
> sites and by waiting for a grace period before dropping the old reference
> on the write side.
> 
> call_rcu(&old_pid->rcu, ...) cannot be used here because free_pid()
> also queues pid->rcu; queueing the same rcu_head twice can corrupt the
> RCU callback list.
> 
> Original KASAN crash stack:
>   kernel/pid.c:545 pid_nr_ns()        # reads freed pid->level
>   kernel/pid.c:556 pid_vnr()          # calls pid_nr_ns()
>   kernel/pid.c:775 proc_do_cad_pid()  # calls pid_vnr(cad_pid)
> 
> Fixes: 9ec52099e4b8 ("[PATCH] replace cad_pid by a struct pid")
> Reported-by: AutonomousCodeSecurity@microsoft.com
> Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260717210143.4734-1-blbllhy@gmail.com/
> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/alz5ZYLE4kaq_v2P@redhat.com/
> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/al4ICz9biJKtdZc4@redhat.com/
> Suggested-by: Mateusz Guzik <mjguzik@gmail.com>
> Suggested-by: Bradley Morgan <include@grrlz.net>
> Suggested-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
> Suggested-by: Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
> Suggested-by: Pavel Tikhomirov <ptikhomirov@virtuozzo.com>
> Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
> Signed-off-by: Cen Zhang (Microsoft) <blbllhy@gmail.com>
> ---
> v4:
>  - Rebase on sysctl-next after Oleg's cad_pid sysctl placement change.
>  - Fold the two-patch v3 series into a single lifetime fix.
>  - Move kill_cad_pid() implementation to kernel/signal.c.
>  - Export kill_cad_pid() and stop exporting the raw cad_pid pointer.
>  - Update proc_do_cad_pid() in kernel/reboot.c.
>  - Add explicit includes for the RCU API and kill_cad_pid().
>  - Preserve the original unprivileged impact context while noting that
>    the namespace permission path has been fixed separately.
> 
> v3:
>  - Keep kill_cad_pid() inside the RCU read-side critical section
>    instead of taking a pid reference, as suggested by Oleg.
> 
> v2:
>  - Split out kill_cad_pid() deinline into a preparatory patch.
>  - Annotate cad_pid as __rcu and use rcu_dereference().
>  - Protect kill_cad_pid() by taking a pid reference under RCU.
>  - Add a comment explaining why synchronize_rcu() is used instead of
>    call_rcu().
> 
>  include/linux/sched.h        |  2 +-
>  include/linux/sched/signal.h |  5 +----
>  init/main.c                  |  2 +-
>  kernel/reboot.c              | 19 +++++++++++++++----
>  kernel/signal.c              | 12 ++++++++++++
>  5 files changed, 30 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/include/linux/sched.h b/include/linux/sched.h
> index 373bcc0598d1..31ce72b1233c 100644
> --- a/include/linux/sched.h
> +++ b/include/linux/sched.h
> @@ -1767,7 +1767,7 @@ static inline bool is_lazy_mmu_mode_active(void)
>  }
>  #endif
>  
> -extern struct pid *cad_pid;
> +extern struct pid __rcu *cad_pid;
>  
>  /*
>   * Per process flags
> diff --git a/include/linux/sched/signal.h b/include/linux/sched/signal.h
> index 584ae88b435e..d45a5476b97d 100644
> --- a/include/linux/sched/signal.h
> +++ b/include/linux/sched/signal.h
> @@ -562,10 +562,7 @@ static inline sigset_t *sigmask_to_save(void)
>  	return res;
>  }
>  
> -static inline int kill_cad_pid(int sig, int priv)
> -{
> -	return kill_pid(cad_pid, sig, priv);
> -}
> +int kill_cad_pid(int sig, int priv);
>  
>  /* These can be the second arg to send_sig_info/send_group_sig_info.  */
>  #define SEND_SIG_NOINFO ((struct kernel_siginfo *) 0)
> diff --git a/init/main.c b/init/main.c
> index e363232b428b..19a10d0c2760 100644
> --- a/init/main.c
> +++ b/init/main.c
> @@ -1636,7 +1636,7 @@ static noinline void __init kernel_init_freeable(void)
>  	 */
>  	set_mems_allowed(node_states[N_MEMORY]);
>  
> -	cad_pid = get_pid(task_pid(current));
> +	rcu_assign_pointer(cad_pid, get_pid(task_pid(current)));
>  
>  	smp_prepare_cpus(setup_max_cpus);
>  
> diff --git a/kernel/reboot.c b/kernel/reboot.c
> index f070c5c1103a..d177d89fcc33 100644
> --- a/kernel/reboot.c
> +++ b/kernel/reboot.c
> @@ -13,7 +13,9 @@
>  #include <linux/kexec.h>
>  #include <linux/kmod.h>
>  #include <linux/kmsg_dump.h>
> +#include <linux/rcupdate.h>
>  #include <linux/reboot.h>
> +#include <linux/sched/signal.h>
>  #include <linux/suspend.h>
>  #include <linux/syscalls.h>
>  #include <linux/syscore_ops.h>
> @@ -24,8 +26,7 @@
>   */
>  
>  static int C_A_D = 1;
> -struct pid *cad_pid;
> -EXPORT_SYMBOL(cad_pid);
> +struct pid __rcu *cad_pid;
>  
>  #if defined(CONFIG_ARM)
>  #define DEFAULT_REBOOT_MODE		= REBOOT_HARD
> @@ -1371,10 +1372,14 @@ static int proc_do_cad_pid(const struct ctl_table *table, int write, void *buffe
>  {
>  	struct ctl_table tmp_table = *table;
>  	struct pid *new_pid;
> +	struct pid *old_pid;
>  	pid_t tmp_pid;
>  	int r;
>  
> -	tmp_pid = pid_vnr(cad_pid);
> +	rcu_read_lock();
> +	tmp_pid = pid_vnr(rcu_dereference(cad_pid));
> +	rcu_read_unlock();
> +
>  	tmp_table.data = &tmp_pid;
>  
>  	r = proc_dointvec(&tmp_table, write, buffer, lenp, ppos);
> @@ -1385,7 +1390,13 @@ 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 = unrcu_pointer(xchg(&cad_pid, RCU_INITIALIZER(new_pid)));
> +	/*
> +	 * Wait for cad_pid readers before put_pid().  We cannot use
> +	 * call_rcu() here because free_pid() already owns pid->rcu.
> +	 */
> +	synchronize_rcu();
> +	put_pid(old_pid);
>  	return 0;
>  }
>  
> diff --git a/kernel/signal.c b/kernel/signal.c
> index 9c2b32c4d755..464732c44554 100644
> --- a/kernel/signal.c
> +++ b/kernel/signal.c
> @@ -1891,6 +1891,18 @@ int kill_pid(struct pid *pid, int sig, int priv)
>  }
>  EXPORT_SYMBOL(kill_pid);
>  
> +int kill_cad_pid(int sig, int priv)
> +{
> +	int ret;
> +
> +	rcu_read_lock();
> +	ret = kill_pid(rcu_dereference(cad_pid), sig, priv);
> +	rcu_read_unlock();
> +
> +	return ret;
> +}
> +EXPORT_SYMBOL(kill_cad_pid);
> +
>  #ifdef CONFIG_POSIX_TIMERS
>  /*
>   * These functions handle POSIX timer signals. POSIX timers use
> 
> base-commit: 8d75c338f0bcecaa6c9af67f86c176b67b6acf3e

-- 
Best regards, Pavel Tikhomirov
Senior Software Developer, Virtuozzo.