SUSE: CVE-2021-46936: SUSE Linux Security Advisory

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net: fix use-after-free in tw_timer_handler

A real world panic issue was found as follow in Linux 5.4.

BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ffffde49a863de28
PGD 7e6fe62067 P4D 7e6fe62067 PUD 7e6fe63067 PMD f51e064067 PTE 0
RIP: 0010:tw_timer_handler+0x20/0x40
Call Trace:

call_timer_fn+0x2b/0x120
run_timer_softirq+0x1ef/0x450
__do_softirq+0x10d/0x2b8
irq_exit+0xc7/0xd0
smp_apic_timer_interrupt+0x68/0x120
apic_timer_interrupt+0xf/0x20

This issue was also reported since 2017 in the thread [1],
unfortunately, the issue was still can be reproduced after fixing
DCCP.

The ipv4_mib_exit_net is called before tcp_sk_exit_batch when a net
namespace is destroyed since tcp_sk_ops is registered befrore
ipv4_mib_ops, which means tcp_sk_ops is in the front of ipv4_mib_ops
in the list of pernet_list. There will be a use-after-free on
net->mib.net_statistics in tw_timer_handler after ipv4_mib_exit_net
if there are some inflight time-wait timers.

This bug is not introduced by commit f2bf415cfed7 ("mib: add net to
NET_ADD_STATS_BH") since the net_statistics is a global variable
instead of dynamic allocation and freeing. Actually, commit
61a7e26028b9 ("mib: put net statistics on struct net") introduces
the bug since it put net statistics on struct net and free it when
net namespace is destroyed.

Moving init_ipv4_mibs() to the front of tcp_init() to fix this bug
and replace pr_crit() with panic() since continuing is meaningless
when init_ipv4_mibs() fails.

[1] https://groups.google.com/g/syzkaller/c/p1tn-_Kc6l4/m/smuL_FMAAgAJ?pli=1