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Linus Torvalds 8c2e52ebbe eventpoll: don't decrement ep refcount while still holding the ep mutex
Jann Horn points out that epoll is decrementing the ep refcount and then
doing a

    mutex_unlock(&ep->mtx);

afterwards. That's very wrong, because it can lead to a use-after-free.

That pattern is actually fine for the very last reference, because the
code in question will delay the actual call to "ep_free(ep)" until after
it has unlocked the mutex.

But it's wrong for the much subtler "next to last" case when somebody
*else* may also be dropping their reference and free the ep while we're
still using the mutex.

Note that this is true even if that other user is also using the same ep
mutex: mutexes, unlike spinlocks, can not be used for object ownership,
even if they guarantee mutual exclusion.

A mutex "unlock" operation is not atomic, and as one user is still
accessing the mutex as part of unlocking it, another user can come in
and get the now released mutex and free the data structure while the
first user is still cleaning up.

See our mutex documentation in Documentation/locking/mutex-design.rst,
in particular the section [1] about semantics:

	"mutex_unlock() may access the mutex structure even after it has
	 internally released the lock already - so it's not safe for
	 another context to acquire the mutex and assume that the
	 mutex_unlock() context is not using the structure anymore"

So if we drop our ep ref before the mutex unlock, but we weren't the
last one, we may then unlock the mutex, another user comes in, drops
_their_ reference and releases the 'ep' as it now has no users - all
while the mutex_unlock() is still accessing it.

Fix this by simply moving the ep refcount dropping to outside the mutex:
the refcount itself is atomic, and doesn't need mutex protection (that's
the whole _point_ of refcounts: unlike mutexes, they are inherently
about object lifetimes).

Reported-by: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
Link: https://docs.kernel.org/locking/mutex-design.html#semantics [1]
Cc: Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
Cc: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2025-07-09 10:38:29 -07:00
arch arm64 fixes for -rc6 2025-07-09 08:37:48 -07:00
block block-6.16-20250626 2025-06-27 09:02:33 -07:00
certs sign-file,extract-cert: use pkcs11 provider for OPENSSL MAJOR >= 3 2024-09-20 19:52:48 +03:00
crypto crypto: wp512 - Use API partial block handling 2025-06-23 16:56:56 +08:00
Documentation Add the mitigation logic for Transient Scheduler Attacks (TSA) 2025-07-07 17:08:36 -07:00
drivers Pin control fixes for the v6.16 series: 2025-07-09 08:33:08 -07:00
fs eventpoll: don't decrement ep refcount while still holding the ep mutex 2025-07-09 10:38:29 -07:00
include bitops: fix BITS_PER_LONG merge error 2025-07-08 12:22:16 -07:00
init futex: Temporary disable FUTEX_PRIVATE_HASH 2025-07-01 15:02:05 +02:00
io_uring io_uring-6.16-20250630 2025-06-30 16:32:43 -07:00
ipc - The 3 patch series "hung_task: extend blocking task stacktrace dump to 2025-05-31 19:12:53 -07:00
kernel module: Make sure relocations are applied to the per-CPU section 2025-07-08 20:52:30 +02:00
lib Including fixes from Bluetooth. 2025-07-03 09:18:55 -07:00
LICENSES LICENSES: add CC0-1.0 license text 2025-05-21 14:54:17 +02:00
mm vfs-6.16-rc5.fixes 2025-07-04 09:06:49 -07:00
net Including fixes from Bluetooth. 2025-07-03 09:18:55 -07:00
rust Driver core fixes for 6.16-rc3 2025-06-18 14:31:16 -07:00
samples - The 3 patch series "hung_task: extend blocking task stacktrace dump to 2025-05-31 19:12:53 -07:00
scripts scripts/gdb: fix dentry_name() lookup 2025-06-25 15:55:03 -07:00
security selinux: change security_compute_sid to return the ssid or tsid on match 2025-06-19 16:13:16 -04:00
sound ALSA: hda/realtek: Enable headset Mic on Positivo K116J 2025-07-07 14:09:09 +02:00
tools uapi: bitops: use UAPI-safe variant of BITS_PER_LONG again (2) 2025-07-08 10:23:13 -04:00
usr usr/include: openrisc: don't HDRTEST bpf_perf_event.h 2025-05-12 15:03:17 +09:00
virt Merge branch 'kvm-lockdep-common' into HEAD 2025-05-28 06:29:17 -04:00
.clang-format Linux 6.15-rc5 2025-05-06 16:39:25 +10:00
.clippy.toml rust: clean Rust 1.88.0's warning about clippy::disallowed_macros configuration 2025-05-07 00:11:47 +02:00
.cocciconfig
.editorconfig .editorconfig: remove trim_trailing_whitespace option 2024-06-13 16:47:52 +02:00
.get_maintainer.ignore MAINTAINERS: Retire Ralf Baechle 2024-11-12 15:48:59 +01:00
.gitattributes .gitattributes: set diff driver for Rust source code files 2023-05-31 17:48:25 +02:00
.gitignore .gitignore: ignore Python compiled bytecode 2025-04-24 10:12:46 -06:00
.mailmap 16 hotfixes. 6 are cc:stable and the remainder address post-6.15 issues 2025-06-27 20:34:10 -07:00
.pylintrc docs: add a .pylintrc file with sys path for docs scripts 2025-04-09 12:10:33 -06:00
.rustfmt.toml
COPYING
CREDITS CREDITS: Add entry for Shannon Nelson 2025-06-21 07:34:28 -07:00
Kbuild drm: ensure drm headers are self-contained and pass kernel-doc 2025-02-12 10:44:43 +02:00
Kconfig io_uring: Rename KConfig to Kconfig 2025-02-19 14:53:27 -07:00
MAINTAINERS Pin control fixes for the v6.16 series: 2025-07-09 08:33:08 -07:00
Makefile Linux 6.16-rc5 2025-07-06 14:10:26 -07:00
README README: Fix spelling 2024-03-18 03:36:32 -06:00

Linux kernel
============

There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.  The formatted documentation can also be read online at:

    https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the reStructuredText markup notation.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.