Re: [PATCH mm-hotfixes v2 1/4] mm/vmalloc: acquire init_mm lock on huge vmap to avoid ptdump UAF

[Dev Jain <dev.jain@arm.com>]

On 12/07/26 4:12 pm, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote:
> Currently there is a nasty race between ptdump and vmap when attempting to
> map a huge P4D, PMD or PUD entry.
> 
> ptdump is invoked by arch code to walk kernel or EFI page tables, either to
> output it for debugging purposes, or to assert that there are no
> W+X (i.e. executable writable pages) exposed in these ranges.
> 
> The feature is enabled generally via CONFIG_PTDUMP (whose implementation is
> in mm/ptdump.c), and expose a debugfs interface for it if
> CONFIG_PTDUMP_DEBUGFS is defined.
> 
> If CONFIG_PTDUMP is enabled, then /sys/kernel/debug/check_wx_pages is
> enabled which checks kernel ranges to perform the W+X check. If
> CONFIG_DEBUG_WX is enabled, this is done on boot.
> 
> (Note that arm32 implements its own page table walker and uses
> CONFIG_ARM_DEBUG_WX and CONFIG_ARM_PTDUMP_DEBUGFS for this.)
> 
> The EFI implementations vary by architecture, but are not relevant to the
> bug, as the issue is when kernel page ranges are walked.
> 
> ptdump_walk_pgd() holds both the mem hotplug lock and the mmap write lock
> before invoking walk_page_range_debug(), however this runs into an issue
> with vmalloc ranges.
> 
> When vmap maps a P4D, PUD or a PMD sized range and encounters an existing
> P4d/PUD/PMD entry pointing to a PUD/PMD/PTE page table, it invokes
> vmap_try_huge_[p4d,pud,pmd]() to try to convert it to a huge page table
> mapping if possible.
> 
> However, when it does this, it holds no meaningful locks against other
> kernel page table walkers, invoking [p4d,pud,pmd]_free_[pud,pmd,pte]_page()
> which calls pagetable_free() and pagetable_free_kernel() in
> turn (pte_fragment_free() for powerpc).
> 
> This means that a use-after-free becomes possible if the ptdump page table
> walker happens to be walking a PUD, PMD or PTE page table after it has been
> freed.
> 
> Since commit 5ba2f0a15564 ("mm: introduce deferred freeing for kernel page
> tables"), if CONFIG_ASYNC_KERNEL_PGTABLE_FREE is set,
> pagetable_free_kernel() will batch the page table freeing operation,
> otherwise it frees the page table directly.
> 
> While the KASAN report that syzbot highlighted indicated that the issue
> arose in a workqueue introduced by this change, this is coincidental and
> the commit did not alter the race which has existed for quite some time.
> 
> This patch resolves the issue by simply having
> vmap_try_huge_[p4d,pud,pmd]() hold the mmap read lock on init_mm while
> invoking [p4d,pud,pmd]_free_[pud,pmd,pte]_page() and
> [p4d,pud,pmd]_set_huge().
> 
> This way, page table walkers either observe a newly promoted huge
> P4D/PUD/PMD leaf entry or the prior PUD/PMD/PTE entry and never get passed
> a dangling pointer, whether the page is freed asynchronously or not.
> 
> All other kernel page table walkers that touch vmalloc ranges either
> exclusively own the memory walked or acquire the mmap lock, so this
> correctly excludes those walkers.
> 
> We acquire the mmap read lock as a trylock, as this is an optimisation that
> is permitted not to succeed, a race is very unlikely, and doing so
> eliminates latency sleeping on the lock would have otherwise caused.
> 
> We also define a guard class for mmap_read_trylock() so we can use
> cleanup.h to make the scope handling cleaner in the implementation.
> 
> One wrinkle here is commit fa93b45fd397 ("arm64: Enable vmalloc-huge with
> ptdump"), which addresses the issue for arm64 only by explicitly acquiring
> the mmap read lock on kernel page table freeing should a concurrent ptdump
> be in progress.
> 
> This is problematic as vmap may acquire the mmap read lock prior to ptdump
> attempting to acquire an mmap write lock, leading to a deadlock when the
> mmap read lock is slept upon on page table freeing due to rwsem
> anti-starvation.
> 
> We work around this by predicating the mmap lock being taken on
> !CONFIG_ARM64 for the time being.
> 
> With this patch applied, a follow up will partially revert commit
> fa93b45fd397 ("arm64: Enable vmalloc-huge with ptdump") and at that stage
> remove the arm64 ifdeffery.
> 
> We also update walk_page_range_debug() to assert the mmap write lock
> unconditionally and update the comment here to reflect this change.
> 
> The issue has existed as long as ptdump was available and vmap freed page
> tables when promoting to a huge leaf entry, that is, since commit
> b6bdb7517c3d ("mm/vmalloc: add interfaces to free unmapped page table") for
> huge ioremap, and commit 121e6f3258fe ("mm/vmalloc: hugepage vmalloc
> mappings") for huge vmalloc.
> 
> Since the former is the earlier of the two we choose that for our Fixes
> tag.
> 
> This patch is based on work by David Carlier (linked), with gratitude!
> 
> Fixes: b6bdb7517c3d ("mm/vmalloc: add interfaces to free unmapped page table")
> Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
> Reported-by: syzbot+fd95a72470f5a44e464c@syzkaller.appspotmail.com
> Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/all/6a287988.39669fcc.33b062.00a0.GAE@google.com/T/
> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20260706203128.162335-1-devnexen@gmail.com/
> Reviewed-by: Mike Rapoport (Microsoft) <rppt@kernel.org>
> Signed-off-by: Lorenzo Stoakes <ljs@kernel.org>
> ---
Reviewed-by: Dev Jain <dev.jain@arm.com>