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From: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
To: stable@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>,
	Farhad Alemi <farhad.alemi@berkeley.edu>,
	Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
Subject: [PATCH 5.15.y] ALSA: control: Fix UAF in snd_ctl_elem_add() on card disconnect
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2026 11:22:12 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20261111162146.3266882-1-sashal@kernel.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20261107060049-failed-5.15-d4febca239be@kernel.org>

From: Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>

[ Upstream commit d4febca239be3c91498762dd0535a87d4af1eabc ]

A use-after-free can be triggered via SNDRV_CTL_IOCTL_ELEM_ADD when a
USB audio card is disconnected while an ELEM_ADD ioctl is in flight.

The reproducer parks the ioctl thread inside copy_from_user() using
userfaultfd, then tears down the USB device.  Unlike every other
ALSA control _user handler (ELEM_INFO, ELEM_READ, ELEM_WRITE, TLV_*),
snd_ctl_elem_add_user() never calls snd_power_ref_and_wait(), so the
parked thread holds no power reference.  snd_card_disconnect() therefore
cannot observe it via snd_power_sync_ref() and proceeds unimpeded:

  1. card->shutdown is set to 1
  2. device_del(&card->card_dev) drops the kobject reference on the
     parent USB interface device (card->dev = &intf->dev)
  3. The USB core drops its own reference and calls device_release(),
     freeing the struct usb_interface, including the embedded struct
     device that card->dev points to

When the userfaultfd is resolved and the thread resumes,
snd_ctl_elem_add() acquires controls_rwsem without checking
card->shutdown and calls __snd_ctl_add_replace().  Because the
reproducer pre-registered the same control, the CTL_ADD_EXCLUSIVE
path calls dev_err(card->dev, ...) on the freed USB interface:

  KASAN: slab-use-after-free Read in __dev_printk

Add a card->shutdown guard immediately after acquiring controls_rwsem
in snd_ctl_elem_add().  At that point card->shutdown is guaranteed to
be stable: snd_card_disconnect() sets it before freeing the parent
device, and it never transitions back to 0.  A thread that acquired
the lock before disconnect sees shutdown=0 and holds the write lock
through the rest of the operation, preventing concurrent disconnect
from proceeding past its own controls_rwsem-less shutdown=1 store
(which happened earlier, outside the lock) from racing with dev_err().

Reported-by: Farhad Alemi <farhad.alemi@berkeley.edu>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260929125346.1478631-3-tiwai@suse.de
[ sashal: adapted the direct error return to set err and goto unlock for explicit rwsem locking ]
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
---
 sound/core/control.c | 4 ++++
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)

diff --git a/sound/core/control.c b/sound/core/control.c
index bce311cd5326b..3c06f426dadd0 100644
--- a/sound/core/control.c
+++ b/sound/core/control.c
@@ -1534,6 +1534,10 @@ static int snd_ctl_elem_add(struct snd_ctl_file *file,
 	alloc_size = compute_user_elem_size(private_size, count);
 
 	down_write(&card->controls_rwsem);
+	if (card->shutdown) {
+		err = -ENODEV;
+		goto unlock;
+	}
 	if (check_user_elem_overflow(card, alloc_size)) {
 		err = -ENOMEM;
 		goto unlock;
-- 
2.53.0


      reply	other threads:[~2026-11-11 16:22 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 2+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-11-07 11:00 FAILED: patch "[PATCH] ALSA: control: Fix UAF in snd_ctl_elem_add() on card disconnect" failed to apply to 5.15-stable tree Sasha Levin
2026-11-11 16:22 ` Sasha Levin [this message]

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