CVE-2021-47465

KVM: PPC: Book3S HV: Fix stack handling in idle_kvm_start_guest()

High · published May 22, 2024

CVSS v3.1
7.1
EPSS
0%
Percentile
12.3
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

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

KVM: PPC: Book3S HV: Fix stack handling in idle_kvm_start_guest()

In commit 10d91611f426 ("powerpc/64s: Reimplement book3s idle code in

C") kvm_start_guest() became idle_kvm_start_guest(). The old code

allocated a stack frame on the emergency stack, but didn't use the

frame to store anything, and also didn't store anything in its caller's

frame.

idle_kvm_start_guest() on the other hand is written more like a normal C

function, it creates a frame on entry, and also stores CR/LR into its

callers frame (per the ABI). The problem is that there is no caller

frame on the emergency stack.

The emergency stack for a given CPU is allocated with:

paca_ptrs[i]->emergency_sp = alloc_stack(limit, i) + THREAD_SIZE;

So emergency_sp actually points to the first address above the emergency

stack allocation for a given CPU, we must not store above it without

first decrementing it to create a frame. This is different to the

regular kernel stack, paca->kstack, which is initialised to point at an

initial frame that is ready to use.

idle_kvm_start_guest() stores the backchain, CR and LR all of which

write outside the allocation for the emergency stack. It then creates a

stack frame and saves the non-volatile registers. Unfortunately the

frame it creates is not large enough to fit the non-volatiles, and so

the saving of the non-volatile registers also writes outside the

emergency stack allocation.

The end result is that we corrupt whatever is at 0-24 bytes, and 112-248

bytes above the emergency stack allocation.

In practice this has gone unnoticed because the memory immediately above

the emergency stack happens to be used for other stack allocations,

either another CPUs mc_emergency_sp or an IRQ stack. See the order of

calls to irqstack_early_init() and emergency_stack_init().

The low addresses of another stack are the top of that stack, and so are

only used if that stack is under extreme pressue, which essentially

never happens in practice - and if it did there's a high likelyhood we'd

crash due to that stack overflowing.

Still, we shouldn't be corrupting someone else's stack, and it is purely

luck that we aren't corrupting something else.

To fix it we save CR/LR into the caller's frame using the existing r1 on

entry, we then create a SWITCH_FRAME_SIZE frame (which has space for

pt_regs) on the emergency stack with the backchain pointing to the

existing stack, and then finally we switch to the new frame on the

emergency stack.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v3.1
7.1 · HIGH
Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00224 · 12.3th percentile
Published
2024-05-22T06:23Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 22 MAY 06:23Z
    KVM: PPC: Book3S HV: Fix stack handling in idle_kvm_start_guest()
    cvelistv5