Files
linux/include
Cen Zhang (Microsoft) 5a88f78df7 reboot: fix cad_pid use-after-free race
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: 9ec52099e4 ("[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>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260814040944.16561-1-blbllhy@gmail.com
Reviewed-by: Bradley Morgan <include@grrlz.net>
Reviewed-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Pavel Tikhomirov <ptikhomirov@virtuozzo.com>
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner (Amutable) <brauner@kernel.org>
2026-08-31 10:25:46 +02:00
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