Re: [PATCH] perf/core: Fix group leader use-after-free after sibling detach

["Mi, Dapeng" <dapeng1.mi@linux.intel.com>]

On 6/26/2026 5:54 PM, Aditya Chillara wrote:
> perf_group_detach() handles leader and sibling detach differently. When the
> group leader is detached, all siblings are promoted to singleton events and
> their group_leader pointer is reset to themselves. When a sibling is
> detached, it is removed from the leader's sibling_list, but its
> group_leader pointer is left pointing at the old leader.
>
> That is harmless when the sibling is being closed and freed immediately, as
> in the DETACH_DEAD path. It is not safe when the sibling is detached but
> kept alive, such as during CPU hotplug with DETACH_GROUP. In that case the
> sibling is removed from the context, while its file descriptor can still
> keep it alive.
>
> A typical failing sequence is:
>
>   - A group contains leader L and sibling S.
>   - CPU hot-unplug detaches S with DETACH_GROUP, removing it from
>     L->sibling_list but leaving S->group_leader == L.
>   - L is later closed and freed.
>   - A PERF_IOC_FLAG_GROUP ioctl on S follows S->group_leader and
>     dereferences the freed leader.
>
> This was reproduced by running the perf event fuzzer, CPU hotplug, and a
> stress workload concurrently:
>
> Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 006b6b6b6b6b6cdb
> CPU: 2 PID: 12489 Comm: perf_fuzzer 6.18.7 PREEMPT
> pc : perf_ioctl+0x34c/0xc68
> x20: ffffff89a3fa2c70 x8 : 6b6b6b6b6b6b6b6b
> Code: 943c4a0e 340047a0 f9404a94 f9411e88 (f940b908)
> Call trace:
> perf_ioctl+0x34c/0xc68 (P)
> __arm64_sys_ioctl+0xa0/0xf4
> invoke_syscall+0x58/0xe4
> el0_svc_common+0xa8/0xdc
> do_el0_svc+0x1c/0x28
> el0_svc+0x40/0xc0
> el0t_64_sync_handler+0x68/0xdc
> el0t_64_sync+0x1c4/0x1c8
>
> The fault happened in perf_ioctl(), where perf_event_for_each() follows
> the stale group_leader pointer and perf_event_for_each_child() then
> dereferences the freed leader's context.
>
> Fix the use-after-free by promoting the detached sibling to a singleton.
>
> Fixes: 8a49542c0554 ("perf_events: Fix races in group composition")
> Assisted-by: PatchWise:gpt-5.5
> Signed-off-by: Aditya Chillara <aditya.chillara@oss.qualcomm.com>
> ---
>  kernel/events/core.c | 20 ++++++++++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 20 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/kernel/events/core.c b/kernel/events/core.c
> index 954c36e28101..dd9892040ab2 100644
> --- a/kernel/events/core.c
> +++ b/kernel/events/core.c
> @@ -2605,6 +2605,26 @@ __perf_remove_from_context(struct perf_event *event,
>  		perf_child_detach(event);
>  	list_del_event(event, ctx);
>  
> +	if ((flags & DETACH_GROUP) && event->group_leader != event) {
> +		/*
> +		 * list_del_event() needed the old group_leader to tell a real
> +		 * leader from a sibling. That's done now, so make the detached
> +		 * sibling self-contained.
> +		 */
> +		event->group_leader = event;
> +		event->group_caps = event->event_caps;
> +
> +		/*
> +		 * PERF_EV_CAP_SIBLING event requires being part of a group, so move
> +		 * the event to ERROR state if it is still alive.
> +		 */
> +		if ((event->event_caps & PERF_EV_CAP_SIBLING) &&
> +		    event->state > PERF_EVENT_STATE_ERROR)
> +			perf_event_set_state(event, PERF_EVENT_STATE_ERROR);
> +
> +		perf_event__header_size(event);
> +	}
> +

Why not move this part of fixing code into perf_group_detach()? It seems a
better place to fix the issue. Thanks.


>  	if (!pmu_ctx->nr_events) {
>  		pmu_ctx->rotate_necessary = 0;
>  
>
> ---
> base-commit: ab9de95c9cf952332ab79453b4b5d1bfca8e514f
> change-id: 20260626-fix-group-leader-uaf-c46960e525e0
>
> Best regards,
> --  
> Aditya Chillara <aditya.chillara@oss.qualcomm.com>
>
>