In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
nilfs2: fix use-after-free bug of ns_writer on remount
If a nilfs2 filesystem is downgraded to read-only due to metadata corruption on disk and is remounted read/write, or if emergency read-only remount is performed, detaching a log writer and synchronizing the filesystem can be done at the same time.
In these cases, use-after-free of the log writer (hereinafter nilfs->ns_writer) can happen as shown in the scenario below:
Task1 Task2 -------------------------------- ------------------------------ nilfs_construct_segment nilfs_segctor_sync init_wait init_waitqueue_entry add_wait_queue schedule nilfs_remount (R/W remount case) nilfs_attach_log_writer nilfs_detach_log_writer nilfs_segctor_destroy kfree finish_wait _raw_spin_lock_irqsave __raw_spin_lock_irqsave do_raw_spin_lock debug_spin_lock_before <-- use-after-free
While Task1 is sleeping, nilfs->ns_writer is freed by Task2. After Task1 waked up, Task1 accesses nilfs->ns_writer which is already freed. This scenario diagram is based on the Shigeru Yoshida's post [1].
This patch fixes the issue by not detaching nilfs->ns_writer on remount so that this UAF race doesn't happen. Along with this change, this patch also inserts a few necessary read-only checks with superblock instance where only the ns_writer pointer was used to check if the filesystem is read-only.