[PATCH net 0/5] rose: fix use-after-free and reference counting bugs

Bernard Pidoux
2026-04-26T14:43:08Z

This series fixes several bugs in the ROSE protocol loopback path and
state machines, all confirmed by KASAN on a live system.

A long-standing practical consequence of these bugs is that once the
rose module has been used to establish at least one connection, it can
no longer be unloaded cleanly: rmmod(8) hangs or causes a kernel crash
because outstanding references and running timers prevent the module
from completing its exit path. Patches 2 and 3 together fix this by
ensuring the loopback timer stops cleanly and all neighbour references
are released on module exit.

Patch 1 fixes a device reference leak in rose_loopback_timer(): dev_put()
was only called on the failure path of rose_rx_call_request(), leaking a
reference on every successful loopback CALL_REQUEST. It also removes a
dead check that can never be true for the loopback neighbour.

Patch 2 adds hold/put protection around the loopback timer body so that
rose_loopback_neigh cannot be freed while the callback is running.

Patch 3 fixes a race between the loopback timer and module removal by
switching rose_loopback_clear() to timer_delete_sync() and adding an
atomic loopback_stopping flag that prevents the timer from re-arming
itself after module exit has started.

Patch 4 clears rose->neighbour to NULL after every rose_neigh_put() call
in the ROSE state machines (rose_in.c), preventing use of a potentially
freed pointer by later code paths.

Patch 5 guards the rose_neigh_put() call in rose_timer_expiry() STATE_2
against a NULL pointer that can appear when a concurrent teardown path
(e.g. rose_kill_by_device()) has already cleared the neighbour pointer
between a timer re-arm and the next firing.

Bernard Pidoux (5):
rose: fix dev_put() leak in rose_loopback_timer()
rose: hold loopback neighbour reference across timer callback
rose: fix race between loopback timer and module removal
rose: clear neighbour pointer after rose_neigh_put() in state machines
rose: guard rose_neigh_put() against NULL in timer expiry

net/rose/rose_in.c | 6 +++++
net/rose/rose_loopback.c | 53 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------------
net/rose/rose_timer.c | 5 +++-
3 files changed, 46 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-)

--
2.51.0