CVEvulnerability
CVE-2021-46921
5.5 MEDIUM
Official page ↗
- Status
- Modified
- Published
- 2024-02-27
- Last modified
- 2026-08-04
- Assigner
- 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
- CVSS 3.1 (416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67)
- 7.8 HIGH — CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CVSS 3.1 ([email protected])
- 5.5 MEDIUM — CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
- Weaknesses
- CWE-668
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
locking/qrwlock: Fix ordering in queued_write_lock_slowpath()
While this code is executed with the wait_lock held, a reader can
acquire the lock without holding wait_lock. The writer side loops
checking the value with the atomic_cond_read_acquire(), but only truly
acquires the lock when the compare-and-exchange is completed
successfully which isn’t ordered. This exposes the window between the
acquire and the cmpxchg to an A-B-A problem which allows reads
following the lock acquisition to observe values speculatively before
the write lock is truly acquired.
We've seen a problem in epoll where the reader does a xchg while
holding the read lock, but the writer can see a value change out from
under it.
Writer | Reader
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ep_scan_ready_list() |
|- write_lock_irq() |
|- queued_write_lock_slowpath() |
|- atomic_cond_read_acquire() |
| read_lock_irqsave(&ep->lock, flags);
--> (observes value before unlock) | chain_epi_lockless()
| | epi->next = xchg(&ep->ovflist, epi);
| | read_unlock_irqrestore(&ep->lock, flags);
| |
| atomic_cmpxchg_relaxed() |
|-- READ_ONCE(ep->ovflist); |
A core can order the read of the ovflist ahead of the
atomic_cmpxchg_relaxed(). Switching the cmpxchg to use acquire
semantics addresses this issue at which point the atomic_cond_read can
be switched to use relaxed semantics.
[peterz: use try_cmpxchg()]
Affected configurations
• linux linux kernel (>= 4.15.0 < 4.19.189)
• linux linux kernel (>= 4.20.0 < 5.4.115)
• linux linux kernel (>= 5.5.0 < 5.10.33)
• linux linux kernel (>= 5.11.0 < 5.11.17)
Related
Weakness · CWE (1)
- CWE-668 Exposure of Resource to Wrong Sphere weakness
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5902f9453a313be8fe78cbd7e7ca9dba9319fc6e Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/82808cc026811fbc3ecf0c0b267a12a339eead56 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/82fa9ced35d88581cffa4a1c856fc41fca96d80a Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/84a24bf8c52e66b7ac89ada5e3cfbe72d65c1896 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d558fcdb17139728347bccc60a16af3e639649d2 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5902f9453a313be8fe78cbd7e7ca9dba9319fc6e Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/82808cc026811fbc3ecf0c0b267a12a339eead56 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/82fa9ced35d88581cffa4a1c856fc41fca96d80a Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/84a24bf8c52e66b7ac89ada5e3cfbe72d65c1896 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d558fcdb17139728347bccc60a16af3e639649d2 Patch