linux/kernel/time
Thomas Gleixner 920f893f73 posix-cpu-timers: Prevent UAF caused by non-leader exec() race
Wongi and Jungwoo decoded and reported a non-leader exec() related race
which can result in an UAF:

 sys_timer_delete()			exec()
   posix_cpu_timer_del()
   // Observes old leader
   p = pid_task(pid, pid_type);		de_thread()
   					  switch_leader();
					  release_task(old_leader)
					    __exit_signal(old_leader)
					      sighand = lock(old_leader, sighand);
					      posix_cpu_timers*_exit();
   sighand = lock_task_sighand(p)	      unhash_task(old_leader);
     sh = lock(p, sighand)	    	      old_leader->sighand = NULL;
					      unlock(sighand);
     (p->sighand == NULL)
	unlock(sh)
	return NULL;

   // Returns without action
   if(!sighand)
      return 0;
   free_posix_timer();

This is "harmless" unless the deleted timer was armed and enqueued in
p->signal because on exec() a TGID targeted timer is inherited.

As sys_timer_delete() freed the underlying posix timer object
run_posix_cpu_timers() or any timerqueue related add/delete operations on
other timers will access the freed object's timerqueue node, which results
in an UAF.

There is a similar problem vs. posix_cpu_timer_set(). For regular posix
timers it just transiently returns -ESRCH to user space, but for the use
case in do_cpu_nanosleep() it's the same UAF just that the k_itimer is
allocated on the stack.

Also posix_cpu_timer_rearm() fails to rearm the timer, which means it stops
to expire.

While debating solutions Frederic pointed out another problem:

   posix_cpu_timer_del(tmr)
					__exit_signal(p)
					  posix_cpu_timers*_exit(p);
					  unhash_task(p);
					  p->sighand = NULL;
     sh = lock_task_sighand(p)
        sighand = p->sighand;
	if (!sighand)
	    return NULL;
	lock(sighand);

     if (!sh)
	WARN_ON_ONCE(timer_queued(tmr));

On weakly ordered architectures it is not guaranteed that
posix_cpu_timer_del() will observe the stores in posix_cpu_timers*_exit()
when p->sighand is observed as NULL, which means the WARN() can be a false
positive.

Solve these issues by:

  1) Changing the store in __exit_signal() to smp_store_release().

  2) Adding a smp_acquire__after_ctrl_dep() into the !sighand path
     of lock_task_sighand().

  3) Creating a helper function for looking up the task and locking sighand
     which does not return when sighand == NULL. Instead it retries the
     task lookup and only if that fails it gives up.

  4) Using that helper in the three affected functions.

#1/#2 ensures that the reader side which observes sighand == NULL also
observes all preceeding stores, i.e. the stores in posix_cpu_timers*_exit()
and the ones in unhash_task().

#3 ensures that the above described non-leader exec() situation is handled
gracefully. When the task lookup returns the old leader, but sighand ==
NULL then it retries. In the non-leader exec() case the subsequent task
lookup will observe the new leader due to #1/#2. In normal exit() scenarios
the subsequent lookup fails.

When the task lookup fails, the function also checks whether the timer is
still enqueued and issues a warning if that's the case. Unfortunately there
is nothing which can be done about it, but as the task is already not
longer visible the timer should not be accessed anymore. This check also
requires memory ordering, which is not provided when the first lookup
fails. To achieve that the check is preceeded by a smp_rmb() which pairs
with the smp_wmb() in write_seqlock() in __exit_signal(). That ensures that
the stores in posix_cpu_timers*_exit() are visible.

The history of the non-leader exec() issue goes back to the early days of
posix CPU timers, which stored a pointer to the group leader task in the
timer. That obviously fails when a non-leader exec() switches the leader.
commit e0a7021710 ("posix-cpu-timers: workaround to suppress the problems
with mt exec") added a temporary workaround for that in 2010 which survived
about 10 years. The fix for the workaround changed the task pointer to a
pid pointer, but failed to see the subtle race described above. So the
Fixes tag picks that commit, which seems to be halfways accurate.

Thanks to Frederic Weissbecker, Oleg Nesterov and Peter Zijlstra for
review, feedback and suggestions and to Wongi and Jungwoo for the excellent
bug report and analysis!

Fixes: 55e8c8eb2c ("posix-cpu-timers: Store a reference to a pid not a task")
Reported-by: Wongi Lee <qw3rtyp0@gmail.com>
Reported-by: Jungwoo Lee <jwlee2217@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
2026-07-05 11:44:06 +02:00
..
.kunitconfig time/kunit: Add .kunitconfig 2026-02-24 08:41:51 +01:00
alarmtimer.c alarmtimer: Remove stale return description from alarm_handle_timer() 2026-05-06 08:33:08 +02:00
clockevents.c clockevents: Fix duplicate type specifier in stub function parameter 2026-06-02 21:07:55 +02:00
clocksource-wdtest.c clocksource: Rewrite watchdog code completely 2026-03-20 13:36:32 +01:00
clocksource.c Updates for the time/timer core subsystem: 2026-06-15 13:39:12 +05:30
hrtimer.c hrtimer: Correct CONFIG_NO_HZ_COMMON macro name in comment 2026-06-17 17:59:45 +02:00
itimer.c timers/itimer: Avoid direct access to hrtimer clockbase 2025-09-09 12:27:17 +02:00
jiffies.c time/jiffies: Register jiffies clocksource before usage 2026-06-13 15:22:40 +02:00
Kconfig vdso/treewide: Drop GENERIC_TIME_VSYSCALL 2026-06-02 21:41:23 +02:00
Makefile timens: Remove dependency on the vDSO 2026-03-26 15:44:23 +01:00
namespace_internal.h timens: Remove dependency on the vDSO 2026-03-26 15:44:23 +01:00
namespace_vdso.c mm.git review status for linus..mm-stable 2026-04-15 12:59:16 -07:00
namespace.c time/namespace: Export init_time_ns and do_timens_ktime_to_host() 2026-06-02 21:05:36 +02:00
ntp_internal.h ntp: Rename __do_adjtimex() to ntp_adjtimex() 2025-06-19 14:28:23 +02:00
ntp.c ntp: Use ktime_get_ntp_seconds() 2025-06-19 14:28:24 +02:00
posix-clock.c Convert 'alloc_obj' family to use the new default GFP_KERNEL argument 2026-02-21 17:09:51 -08:00
posix-cpu-timers.c posix-cpu-timers: Prevent UAF caused by non-leader exec() race 2026-07-05 11:44:06 +02:00
posix-stubs.c posix-timers: Get rid of [COMPAT_]SYS_NI() uses 2023-12-20 21:30:27 -08:00
posix-timers.c posix-timers: Switch to hrtimer_start_expires_user() 2026-05-01 21:36:12 +02:00
posix-timers.h posix-timers: Expand timer_[re]arm() callbacks with a boolean return value 2026-05-01 21:36:11 +02:00
sched_clock.c time/sched_clock: Use ACCESS_PRIVATE() to evaluate hrtimer::function 2026-01-13 18:08:57 +01:00
sleep_timeout.c treewide, timers: Rename from_timer() to timer_container_of() 2025-06-08 09:07:37 +02:00
test_udelay.c time: Add MODULE_DESCRIPTION() to time test modules 2024-06-03 11:18:50 +02:00
tick-broadcast-hrtimer.c clockevents: Remove redundant CLOCK_EVT_FEAT_KTIME 2026-02-27 16:40:06 +01:00
tick-broadcast.c clockevents: Add missing resets of the next_event_forced flag 2026-04-16 21:22:04 +02:00
tick-common.c clockevents: Prevent timer interrupt starvation 2026-04-10 22:45:38 +02:00
tick-internal.h cpufreq: ondemand: Simplify idle cputime granularity test 2026-01-28 22:24:58 +01:00
tick-legacy.c timekeeping: remove xtime_update 2020-10-30 21:57:07 +01:00
tick-oneshot.c treewide: Update email address 2026-01-11 06:09:11 -10:00
tick-sched.c Updates for the NOHZ subsystem: 2026-06-15 13:48:52 +05:30
tick-sched.h tick/sched: Remove unused fields 2026-06-02 21:27:25 +02:00
time_test.c time/kunit: Document handling of negative years of is_leap() 2026-02-02 12:37:54 +01:00
time.c time: Fix off-by-one in compat settimeofday() usec validation 2026-06-22 13:20:20 +02:00
timeconst.bc time: Add SPDX license identifiers 2018-11-23 11:51:20 +01:00
timeconv.c time: Improve performance of time64_to_tm() 2021-06-24 11:51:59 +02:00
timecounter.c time/timecounter: Inline timecounter_cyc2time() 2025-12-15 20:16:49 +01:00
timekeeping_debug.c timekeeping: Add percpu counter for tracking floor swap events 2024-10-10 10:20:46 +02:00
timekeeping_internal.h timekeeping: Provide ktime_get_ntp_seconds() 2025-06-19 14:28:23 +02:00
timekeeping.c timekeeping: Register default clocksource before taking tk_core.lock 2026-06-17 16:55:26 +02:00
timekeeping.h timekeeping: Provide infrastructure for coupled clockevents 2026-02-27 16:40:08 +01:00
timer_list.c tick/sched: Remove unused fields 2026-06-02 21:27:25 +02:00
timer_migration.c Updates for the time/timer core subsystem: 2026-06-15 13:39:12 +05:30
timer_migration.h timers/migration: Turn tmigr_hierarchy level_list into a flexible array 2026-06-02 21:34:03 +02:00
timer.c hrtimer: Return ktime_t from hrtimer_get_next_event()/hrtimer_next_event_without() 2026-05-06 08:33:09 +02:00
vsyscall.c vdso/vsyscall: Avoid slow division loop in auxiliary clock update 2025-09-03 11:55:11 +02:00