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In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been...

Moderate severity Unreviewed Published Oct 21, 2024 to the GitHub Advisory Database • Updated Oct 31, 2024

Package

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Affected versions

Unknown

Patched versions

Unknown

Description

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

net: dsa: improve shutdown sequence

Alexander Sverdlin presents 2 problems during shutdown with the
lan9303 driver. One is specific to lan9303 and the other just happens
to reproduce there.

The first problem is that lan9303 is unique among DSA drivers in that it
calls dev_get_drvdata() at "arbitrary runtime" (not probe, not shutdown,
not remove):

phy_state_machine()
-> ...
-> dsa_user_phy_read()
-> ds->ops->phy_read()
-> lan9303_phy_read()
-> chip->ops->phy_read()
-> lan9303_mdio_phy_read()
-> dev_get_drvdata()

But we never stop the phy_state_machine(), so it may continue to run
after dsa_switch_shutdown(). Our common pattern in all DSA drivers is
to set drvdata to NULL to suppress the remove() method that may come
afterwards. But in this case it will result in an NPD.

The second problem is that the way in which we set
dp->conduit->dsa_ptr = NULL; is concurrent with receive packet
processing. dsa_switch_rcv() checks once whether dev->dsa_ptr is NULL,
but afterwards, rather than continuing to use that non-NULL value,
dev->dsa_ptr is dereferenced again and again without NULL checks:
dsa_conduit_find_user() and many other places. In between dereferences,
there is no locking to ensure that what was valid once continues to be
valid.

Both problems have the common aspect that closing the conduit interface
solves them.

In the first case, dev_close(conduit) triggers the NETDEV_GOING_DOWN
event in dsa_user_netdevice_event() which closes user ports as well.
dsa_port_disable_rt() calls phylink_stop(), which synchronously stops
the phylink state machine, and ds->ops->phy_read() will thus no longer
call into the driver after this point.

In the second case, dev_close(conduit) should do this, as per
Documentation/networking/driver.rst:

Quiescence

|
| After the ndo_stop routine has been called, the hardware must
| not receive or transmit any data. All in flight packets must
| be aborted. If necessary, poll or wait for completion of
| any reset commands.

So it should be sufficient to ensure that later, when we zeroize
conduit->dsa_ptr, there will be no concurrent dsa_switch_rcv() call
on this conduit.

The addition of the netif_device_detach() function is to ensure that
ioctls, rtnetlinks and ethtool requests on the user ports no longer
propagate down to the driver - we're no longer prepared to handle them.

The race condition actually did not exist when commit 0650bf52b31f
("net: dsa: be compatible with masters which unregister on shutdown")
first introduced dsa_switch_shutdown(). It was created later, when we
stopped unregistering the user interfaces from a bad spot, and we just
replaced that sequence with a racy zeroization of conduit->dsa_ptr
(one which doesn't ensure that the interfaces aren't up).

References

Published by the National Vulnerability Database Oct 21, 2024
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Oct 21, 2024
Last updated Oct 31, 2024

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Local
Attack complexity
High
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS score

0.042%
(5th percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2024-49998

GHSA ID

GHSA-3xm8-389p-x4rm

Source code

No known source code

Dependabot alerts are not supported on this advisory because it does not have a package from a supported ecosystem with an affected and fixed version.

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