Re: [PATCH] tracing/user_events: fix use-after-free of enabler in user_event_mm_dup()
From: Beau Belgrave <hidden>
Date: 2026-06-19 00:12:47
Also in:
lkml, stable
On Thu, Jun 18, 2026 at 06:27:43PM -0400, Michael Bommarito wrote:
quoted hunk ↗ jump to hunk
user_event_enabler_destroy() removes an enabler from the per-mm mm->enablers list with list_del_rcu() and then frees it immediately with kfree(). That list is walked locklessly by user_event_mm_dup() during fork(), under rcu_read_lock() only: rcu_read_lock(); list_for_each_entry_rcu(enabler, &old_mm->enablers, mm_enablers_link) ... user_event_mm_dup() does not take event_mutex. The per-enabler destroy path user_events_ioctl_unreg() (DIAG_IOCSUNREG) takes event_mutex but nothing that excludes the dup walk. Threads that share an mm share one user_event_mm and one enabler list, so an unregister on one thread can free an enabler while another thread is forking and user_event_mm_dup() is mid-walk. The walk then dereferences the freed enabler (for example enabler->event in user_event_enabler_dup()). This is reachable by an unprivileged task that can open user_events_data: a single multithreaded process that registers an enabler and then concurrently unregisters it and calls fork() triggers the race. KASAN reports a slab-use-after-free read in user_event_enabler_dup() called from user_event_mm_dup() and copy_process() during clone(); with kasan.fault=panic the kernel panics. Free the enabler after a grace period with kfree_rcu(), matching the list_del_rcu() removal and the rcu_read_lock() readers in user_event_mm_dup(). Add an rcu_head to struct user_event_enabler for this. The error path in user_event_enabler_create() keeps using kfree() because that enabler is freed before it is published to the RCU list. Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org Fixes: 7235759084a4 ("tracing/user_events: Use remote writes for event enablement") Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8 Signed-off-by: Michael Bommarito <redacted> --- Notes: KASAN on the unpatched tree (v7.1, x86-64, CONFIG_KASAN=y, SMP): BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in user_event_enabler_dup+0x50a/0x540 Read of size 8 (enabler->event, 16 bytes into a freed kmalloc-cg-64): user_event_enabler_dup user_event_mm_dup copy_process __do_sys_clone Allocated by the registering task; freed on another CPU via the DIAG_IOCSUNREG path. With kasan.fault=panic the access panics. After the patch the same reproducer runs cleanly (no splat, no panic) across the full window, and a serialized control (same paths, no concurrency) is clean on both stock and patched. Re-ran tools/testing/selftests/user_events on stock and patched, both clean: abi_test pass:6/6, dyn_test pass:4/4, ftrace_test pass:6/6. kernel/trace/trace_events_user.c | 10 +++++++++- 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)diff --git a/kernel/trace/trace_events_user.c b/kernel/trace/trace_events_user.c index c4ba484f7b38b..412ca1e3a40cf 100644 --- a/kernel/trace/trace_events_user.c +++ b/kernel/trace/trace_events_user.c@@ -109,6 +109,9 @@ struct user_event_enabler { /* Track enable bit, flags, etc. Aligned for bitops. */ unsigned long values; + + /* Defer free so RCU list readers (user_event_mm_dup) are safe. */ + struct rcu_head rcu; }; /* Bits 0-5 are for the bit to update upon enable/disable (0-63 allowed) */@@ -404,7 +407,12 @@ static void user_event_enabler_destroy(struct user_event_enabler *enabler, /* No longer tracking the event via the enabler */ user_event_put(enabler->event, locked); - kfree(enabler); + /* + * The enabler is removed from an RCU-traversed list + * (user_event_mm_dup walks mm->enablers under rcu_read_lock only), + * so the backing memory must outlive a grace period. + */ + kfree_rcu(enabler, rcu); } static int user_event_mm_fault_in(struct user_event_mm *mm, unsigned long uaddr,-- 2.53.0
Thanks for fixing this! Acked-by: Beau Belgrave <redacted> Thanks, -Beau