vulnerability
Ubuntu: (CVE-2021-46921): linux vulnerability
| Severity | CVSS | Published | Added | Modified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | (AV:L/AC:L/Au:S/C:C/I:N/A:N) | Feb 27, 2024 | Nov 19, 2024 | Sep 5, 2025 |
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()]
Solutions
References
- CVE-2021-46921
- https://attackerkb.com/topics/CVE-2021-46921
- CWE-668
- URL-https://git.kernel.org/linus/84a24bf8c52e66b7ac89ada5e3cfbe72d65c1896
- URL-https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5902f9453a313be8fe78cbd7e7ca9dba9319fc6e
- URL-https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/82808cc026811fbc3ecf0c0b267a12a339eead56
- URL-https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/82fa9ced35d88581cffa4a1c856fc41fca96d80a
- URL-https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/84a24bf8c52e66b7ac89ada5e3cfbe72d65c1896
- URL-https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d558fcdb17139728347bccc60a16af3e639649d2
- URL-https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-46921
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