Re: [PATCH net] net: nexthop: fix null pointer dereference when IPv6 is not enabled

On 23/11/2021 13:33, Nikolay Aleksandrov wrote:

On 23/11/2021 13:09, Ido Schimmel wrote:

quoted

On Tue, Nov 23, 2021 at 12:27:19PM +0200, Nikolay Aleksandrov wrote:

quoted

From: Nikolay Aleksandrov <redacted>

When we try to add an IPv6 nexthop and IPv6 is not enabled
(!CONFIG_IPV6) we'll hit a NULL pointer dereference[1] in the error path
of nh_create_ipv6() due to calling ipv6_stub->fib6_nh_release. The bug
has been present since the beginning of IPv6 nexthop gateway support.
Commit 1aefd3de7bc6 ("ipv6: Add fib6_nh_init and release to stubs") tells
us that only fib6_nh_init has a dummy stub because fib6_nh_release should
not be called if fib6_nh_init returns an error, but the commit below added
a call to ipv6_stub->fib6_nh_release in its error path. To fix it return
the dummy stub's -EAFNOSUPPORT error directly without calling
ipv6_stub->fib6_nh_release in nh_create_ipv6()'s error path.

[...]

quoted

diff --git a/net/ipv4/nexthop.c b/net/ipv4/nexthop.c
index a69a9e76f99f..5dbd4b5505eb 100644
--- a/net/ipv4/nexthop.c
+++ b/net/ipv4/nexthop.c

@@ -2565,11 +2565,15 @@ static int nh_create_ipv6(struct net *net,  struct nexthop *nh,
 	/* sets nh_dev if successful */
 	err = ipv6_stub->fib6_nh_init(net, fib6_nh, &fib6_cfg, GFP_KERNEL,
 				      extack);
-	if (err)
+	if (err) {
+		/* IPv6 is not enabled, don't call fib6_nh_release */
+		if (err == -EAFNOSUPPORT)
+			goto out;
 		ipv6_stub->fib6_nh_release(fib6_nh);

Is the call actually necessary? If fib6_nh_init() failed, then I believe
it should clean up after itself and not rely on fib6_nh_release().

I think it doesn't do that, or at least not entirely. For example take the following
sequence of events:
 fib6_nh_init:
 ...
  err = fib_nh_common_init(net, &fib6_nh->nh_common, cfg->fc_encap,
                                 cfg->fc_encap_type, cfg, gfp_flags, extack);
  (passes)

  then after:

  fib6_nh->rt6i_pcpu = alloc_percpu_gfp(struct rt6_info *, gfp_flags);
  if (!fib6_nh->rt6i_pcpu) {
          err = -ENOMEM;
          goto out;
  }
  (fails)

I don't see anything in the error path that would free the fib_nh_common_init() resources,
i.e. nothing calls fib_nh_common_release(), which is called by fib6_nh_release().

By the way, I haven't checked but it looks like fib_check_nh_v6_gw() might leak memory if
fib6_nh_init() fails like that unless I'm missing something.

That change might be doable, but much riskier because there is at least 1 call site which relies
on fib6_info_release -> fib6_info_destroy_rcu() to call fib6_nh_release in its error path.

I'd prefer to fix these bugs in a straight-forward way and would go with the bigger
change for fib6_nh_init() cleanup for net-next. WDYT ?

Cheers,
 Nik

Just to let everyone know, me and Ido had a quick offline discussion about the issue, I'll
try to untangle the places which have different cleanup expectations of fib6_nh_init and
try to make it clean up after itself, as that would fix more bugs (e.g. the memory leak I
mentioned earlier) automatically. If the change is too risky or becomes bigger than expected
we can always continue with the simpler fixes for -net and clean it all up in net-next.

I'll update the thread soon.

Thanks,
 Nik