Vulnerability CVE-2021-47566
Published: 2024-05-24

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

proc/vmcore: fix clearing user buffer by properly using clear_user()

To clear a user buffer we cannot simply use memset, we have to use
clear_user(). With a virtio-mem device that registers a vmcore_cb and
has some logically unplugged memory inside an added Linux memory block,
I can easily trigger a BUG by copying the vmcore via "cp":

systemd[1]: Starting Kdump Vmcore Save Service...
kdump[420]: Kdump is using the default log level(3).
kdump[453]: saving to /sysroot/var/crash/127.0.0.1-2021-11-11-14:59:22/
kdump[458]: saving vmcore-dmesg.txt to /sysroot/var/crash/127.0.0.1-2021-11-11-14:59:22/
kdump[465]: saving vmcore-dmesg.txt complete
kdump[467]: saving vmcore
BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: 00007f2374e01000
#PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode
#PF: error_code(0x0003) - permissions violation
PGD 7a523067 P4D 7a523067 PUD 7a528067 PMD 7a525067 PTE 800000007048f867
Oops: 0003 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI
CPU: 0 PID: 468 Comm: cp Not tainted 5.15.0+ #6
Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS rel-1.14.0-27-g64f37cc530f1-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014
RIP: 0010:read_from_oldmem.part.0.cold+0x1d/0x86
Code: ff ff ff e8 05 ff fe ff e9 b9 e9 7f ff 48 89 de 48 c7 c7 38 3b 60 82 e8 f1 fe fe ff 83 fd 08 72 3c 49 8d 7d 08 4c 89 e9 89 e8 <49> c7 45 00 00 00 00 00 49 c7 44 05 f8 00 00 00 00 48 83 e7 f81
RSP: 0018:ffffc9000073be08 EFLAGS: 00010212
RAX: 0000000000001000 RBX: 00000000002fd000 RCX: 00007f2374e01000
RDX: 0000000000000001 RSI: 00000000ffffdfff RDI: 00007f2374e01008
RBP: 0000000000001000 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: ffffc9000073bc50
R10: ffffc9000073bc48 R11: ffffffff829461a8 R12: 000000000000f000
R13: 00007f2374e01000 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: ffff88807bd421e8
FS: 00007f2374e12140(0000) GS:ffff88807f000000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
CR2: 00007f2374e01000 CR3: 000000007a4aa000 CR4: 0000000000350eb0
Call Trace:
read_vmcore+0x236/0x2c0
proc_reg_read+0x55/0xa0
vfs_read+0x95/0x190
ksys_read+0x4f/0xc0
do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x90
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae

Some x86-64 CPUs have a CPU feature called "Supervisor Mode Access
Prevention (SMAP)", which is used to detect wrong access from the kernel
to user buffers like this: SMAP triggers a permissions violation on
wrong access. In the x86-64 variant of clear_user(), SMAP is properly
handled via clac()+stac().

To fix, properly use clear_user() when we're dealing with a user buffer.

 References:
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a9e164bd160be8cbee1df70acb379129e3cd2e7c
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/33a7d698f30fa0b99d50569e9909d3baa65d8f6a
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/99d348b82bcb36171f24411d3f1a15706a2a937a
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9ef384ed300d1bcfb23d0ab0b487d544444d4b52
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fd7974c547abfb03072a4ee706d3a6f182266f89
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a8a917058faf4abaec9fb614bb6d5f8fe3529ec6
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7b3a34f08d11e7f05cd00b8e09adaa15192f0ad1
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c1e63117711977cc4295b2ce73de29dd17066c82
Copyright 2026, cxsecurity.com

 

Back to Top