Re: [PATCH 0/2] uring_cmd SQE corruptions

Caleb Sander
2025-02-12T21:54:16Z

On Wed, Feb 12, 2025 at 12:55 PM Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk> wrote:
>
> On 2/12/25 1:45 PM, Caleb Sander Mateos wrote:
> > In our application issuing NVMe passthru commands, we have observed
> > nvme_uring_cmd fields being corrupted between when userspace initializes
> > the io_uring SQE and when nvme_uring_cmd_io() processes it.
> >
> > We hypothesized that the uring_cmd's were executing asynchronously after
> > the io_uring_enter() syscall returned, yet were still reading the SQE in
> > the userspace-mapped SQ. Since io_uring_enter() had already incremented
> > the SQ head index, userspace reused the SQ slot for a new SQE once the
> > SQ wrapped around to it.
> >
> > We confirmed this hypothesis by "poisoning" all SQEs up to the SQ head
> > index in userspace upon return from io_uring_enter(). By overwriting the
> > nvme_uring_cmd nsid field with a known garbage value, we were able to
> > trigger the err message in nvme_validate_passthru_nsid(), which logged
> > the garbage nsid value.
> >
> > The issue is caused by commit 5eff57fa9f3a ("io_uring/uring_cmd: defer
> > SQE copying until it's needed"). With this commit reverted, the poisoned
> > values in the SQEs are no longer seen by nvme_uring_cmd_io().
> >
> > Prior to the commit, each uring_cmd SQE was unconditionally memcpy()ed
> > to async_data at prep time. The commit moved this memcpy() to 2 cases
> > when the request goes async:
> > - If REQ_F_FORCE_ASYNC is set to force the initial issue to go async
> > - If ->uring_cmd() returns -EAGAIN in the initial non-blocking issue
> >
> > This patch set fixes a bug in the EAGAIN case where the uring_cmd's sqe
> > pointer is not updated to point to async_data after the memcpy(),
> > as it correctly is in the REQ_F_FORCE_ASYNC case.
> >
> > However, uring_cmd's can be issued async in other cases not enumerated
> > by 5eff57fa9f3a, also leading to SQE corruption. These include requests
> > besides the first in a linked chain, which are only issued once prior
> > requests complete. Requests waiting for a drain to complete would also
> > be initially issued async.
> >
> > While it's probably possible for io_uring_cmd_prep_setup() to check for
> > each of these cases and avoid deferring the SQE memcpy(), we feel it
> > might be safer to revert 5eff57fa9f3a to avoid the corruption risk.
> > As discussed recently in regard to the ublk zero-copy patches[1], new
> > async paths added in the future could break these delicate assumptions.
>
> I don't think it's particularly delicate - did you manage to catch the
> case queueing a request for async execution where the sqe wasn't already
> copied? I did take a quick look after our out-of-band conversation, and
> the only missing bit I immediately spotted is using SQPOLL. But I don't
> think you're using that, right? And in any case, lifetime of SQEs with
> SQPOLL is the duration of the request anyway, so should not pose any
> risk of overwriting SQEs. But I do think the code should copy for that
> case too, just to avoid it being a harder-to-use thing than it should
> be.

Yes, even with the EAGAIN case fixed, nvme_validate_passthru_nsid() is
still catching the poisoned nsids. However, the log lines now come
from the application thread rather than the iou-wrk thread.
Indeed, we are not using SQPOLL. But we are using IOSQE_SQE_GROUP from
Ming's SQE group patch set[1]. Like IOSQE_IO_LINK, subsequent
operations in a group are issued only once the first completes. The
first operation in the group is a UBLK_IO_PROVIDE_IO_BUF from Ming's
other patch set[2], which should complete synchronously. The
completion should be processed in __io_submit_flush_completions() ->
io_free_batch_list() and queue the remaining grouped operations to be
issued in task work. And all the pending task work should be processed
during io_uring_enter()'s return to userspace.
But some NVMe passthru operations must be going async because they are
observing the poisoned values the application thread writes into the
io_uring SQEs after io_uring_enter() returns. We don't yet have an
explanation for how they end up being issued async; ftrace shows that
in the typical case, all the NVMe passthru operations in the group are
issued during task work before io_uring_enter() returns to userspace.
Perhaps a pending signal could short-circuit the task work processing?

Best,
Caleb

[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/io-uring/20240511001214.173711-2-ming.lei@redhat.com/T/
[2]: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-block/20241107110149.890530-1-ming.lei@redhat.com/T/

>
> The two patches here look good, I'll go ahead with those. That'll give
> us a bit of time to figure out where this missing copy is.
>
> --
> Jens Axboe