All of lore.kernel.org
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Link Lin <linkl@google.com>
To: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
	Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@kernel.org>,
	 "Michael S . Tsirkin" <mst@redhat.com>,
	David Hildenbrand <david@kernel.org>
Cc: virtualization@lists.linux.dev, linux-mm@kvack.org,
	 linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, prasin@google.com,
	rientjes@google.com,  duenwen@google.com, jasowang@redhat.com,
	xuanzhuo@linux.alibaba.com,
	 Ammar Faizi <ammarfaizi2@openresty.com>,
	jiaqiyan@google.com, ahwilkins@google.com,
	 Greg Thelen <gthelen@google.com>,
	Alexander Duyck <alexander.duyck@gmail.com>,
	jthoughton@google.com,  stable@vger.kernel.org,
	Link Lin <linkl@google.com>
Subject: [PATCH v2 0/2] virtio_balloon: fix Use-After-Free bugs during PM freeze
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2026 00:22:19 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260717002311.681748-1-linkl@google.com> (raw)

This patch series addresses a class of Use-After-Free vulnerabilities
in the virtio_balloon driver that can occur during system power management
freeze (e.g., suspend or hibernation).

The core issue is a lifecycle mismatch: when the system enters freeze,
virtballoon_freeze() resets the virtio device and deletes its virtqueues.
However, several asynchronous or event-driven components of the driver and
related subsystems (Free Page Reporting and Shrinker) remain registered
and active. If they trigger during the freeze/suspend process, they
attempt to access the now-deleted virtqueues, causing kernel crashes
(General Protection Faults or UAF).

To fix this:
1. Migrate Free Page Reporting to use the system_freezable_wq, ensuring
   its worker is frozen before driver freeze callbacks run. (Suggested
   by David Hildenbrand).
2. Avoid shrinker execution while the device is suspended by adding a
   suspended flag to struct virtio_balloon. Wrap lockless reads of this
   flag in READ_ONCE() and writes in WRITE_ONCE() to prevent data races and
   KCSAN warnings.

Note: The OOM notifier (virtio_balloon_oom_notify) is also registered, but
since the PM core disables the OOM killer (via oom_killer_disable()) during
freeze_processes() before device drivers are frozen, it cannot trigger
while the device is frozen. Thus, it does not require a fix.

Testing:
I have verified these fixes using Google’s virtualization infrastructure by
running continuous suspend/resume iterations (40+ cycles) while 
churning memory using stress-ng (stress-ng --vm 4 --vm-bytes 60% --timeout 1)
to constantly create free pages for the buddy allocator. We also set the
page_reporting_order parameter to 0 to make the page reporting worker
highly sensitive, forcing it to pick up any 4K free pages. This 
confirmed that the UAF crashes are no longer reproducible.

RFC: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20260709224330.946683-1-linkl@google.com
---
RFC -> v2:
- Switched page reporting fix from unregister/re-register in driver to
  using system_freezable_wq in mm/page_reporting.c, which avoids complex
  restore rollback logic for that component.
- Switched shrinker fix from unregister/re-register to using a simple
  suspended boolean flag to avoid complex rollback logic. Wrap its reads
  and writes with READ_ONCE()/WRITE_ONCE() to prevent KCSAN data race
  warnings.
- Dropped OOM notifier fix since it's already protected by the PM core's
  oom_killer_disable().

Link Lin (2):
  mm/page_reporting: use system_freezable_wq to fix UAF during suspend
  virtio_balloon: avoid shrinker execution during PM suspend

 drivers/virtio/virtio_balloon.c | 49 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++------
 mm/page_reporting.c             |  6 ++--
 2 files changed, 45 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)
-- 
2.55.0.229.g6434b31f56-goog


             reply	other threads:[~2026-07-17  0:24 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-07-17  0:22 Link Lin [this message]
2026-07-17  0:22 ` [PATCH v2 1/2] mm/page_reporting: use system_freezable_wq to fix UAF during suspend Link Lin
2026-07-17  0:22 ` [PATCH v2 2/2] virtio_balloon: avoid shrinker execution during PM suspend Link Lin
2026-07-17  3:08   ` Link Lin

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=20260717002311.681748-1-linkl@google.com \
    --to=linkl@google.com \
    --cc=ahwilkins@google.com \
    --cc=akpm@linux-foundation.org \
    --cc=alexander.duyck@gmail.com \
    --cc=ammarfaizi2@openresty.com \
    --cc=david@kernel.org \
    --cc=duenwen@google.com \
    --cc=gthelen@google.com \
    --cc=jasowang@redhat.com \
    --cc=jiaqiyan@google.com \
    --cc=jthoughton@google.com \
    --cc=linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=linux-mm@kvack.org \
    --cc=mst@redhat.com \
    --cc=prasin@google.com \
    --cc=rientjes@google.com \
    --cc=stable@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=vbabka@kernel.org \
    --cc=virtualization@lists.linux.dev \
    --cc=xuanzhuo@linux.alibaba.com \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is an external index of several public inboxes,
see mirroring instructions on how to clone and mirror
all data and code used by this external index.