CVE-2023-53368

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

tracing: Fix race issue between cpu buffer write and swap

Warning happened in rb_end_commit() at code:
if (RB_WARN_ON(cpu_buffer, !local_read(&cpu_buffer->committing)))

WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 139 at kernel/trace/ring_buffer.c:3142
rb_commit+0x402/0x4a0
Call Trace:
ring_buffer_unlock_commit+0x42/0x250
trace_buffer_unlock_commit_regs+0x3b/0x250
trace_event_buffer_commit+0xe5/0x440
trace_event_buffer_reserve+0x11c/0x150
trace_event_raw_event_sched_switch+0x23c/0x2c0
__traceiter_sched_switch+0x59/0x80
__schedule+0x72b/0x1580
schedule+0x92/0x120
worker_thread+0xa0/0x6f0

It is because the race between writing event into cpu buffer and swapping
cpu buffer through file per_cpu/cpu0/snapshot:

Write on CPU 0 Swap buffer by per_cpu/cpu0/snapshot on CPU 1
——– ——–
tracing_snapshot_write()
[…]

ring_buffer_lock_reserve()
cpu_buffer = buffer->buffers[cpu]; // 1. Suppose find ‘cpu_buffer_a’;
[…]
rb_reserve_next_event()
[…]

ring_buffer_swap_cpu()
if (local_read(&cpu_buffer_a->committing))
goto out_dec;
if (local_read(&cpu_buffer_b->committing))
goto out_dec;
buffer_a->buffers[cpu] = cpu_buffer_b;
buffer_b->buffers[cpu] = cpu_buffer_a;
// 2. cpu_buffer has swapped here.

rb_start_commit(cpu_buffer);
if (unlikely(READ_ONCE(cpu_buffer->buffer)
!= buffer)) { // 3. This check passed due to ‘cpu_buffer->buffer’
[…] // has not changed here.
return NULL;
}
cpu_buffer_b->buffer = buffer_a;
cpu_buffer_a->buffer = buffer_b;
[…]

// 4. Reserve event from ‘cpu_buffer_a’.

ring_buffer_unlock_commit()
[…]
cpu_buffer = buffer->buffers[cpu]; // 5. Now find ‘cpu_buffer_b’ !!!
rb_commit(cpu_buffer)
rb_end_commit() // 6. WARN for the wrong ‘committing’ state !!!

Based on above analysis, we can easily reproduce by following testcase:
“` bash
#!/bin/bash

dmesg -n 7
sysctl -w kernel.panic_on_warn=1
TR=/sys/kernel/tracing
echo 7 > ${TR}/buffer_size_kb
echo “sched:sched_switch” > ${TR}/set_event
while [ true ]; do
echo 1 > ${TR}/per_cpu/cpu0/snapshot
done &
while [ true ]; do
echo 1 > ${TR}/per_cpu/cpu0/snapshot
done &
while [ true ]; do
echo 1 > ${TR}/per_cpu/cpu0/snapshot
done &
“`

To fix it, IIUC, we can use smp_call_function_single() to do the swap on
the target cpu where the buffer is located, so that above race would be
avoided.