published September 13, 2024
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
workqueue: Fix spruious data race in __flush_work()
When flushing a work item for cancellation, __flush_work() knows that it
exclusively owns the work item through its PENDING bit. 134874e2eee9
("workqueue: Allow cancel_work_sync() and disable_work() from atomic
contexts on BH work items") added a read of @work->data to determine whether
to use busy wait for BH work items that are being canceled. While the read
is safe when @from_cancel, @work->data was read before testing @from_cancel
to simplify code structure:
data = *work_data_bits(work);
if (from_cancel &&
!WARN_ON_ONCE(data & WORK_STRUCT_PWQ) && (data & WORK_OFFQ_BH)) {
While the read data was never used if !@from_cancel, this could trigger
KCSAN data race detection spuriously:
==================================================================
BUG: KCSAN: data-race in __flush_work / __flush_work
write to 0xffff8881223aa3e8 of 8 bytes by task 3998 on cpu 0:
instrument_write include/linux/instrumented.h:41 [inline]
___set_bit include/asm-generic/bitops/instrumented-non-atomic.h:28 [inline]
insert_wq_barrier kernel/workqueue.c:3790 [inline]
start_flush_work kernel/workqueue.c:4142 [inline]
__flush_work+0x30b/0x570 kernel/workqueue.c:4178
flush_work kernel/workqueue.c:4229 [inline]
...
read to 0xffff8881223aa3e8 of 8 bytes by task 50 on cpu 1:
__flush_work+0x42a/0x570 kernel/workqueue.c:4188
flush_work kernel/workqueue.c:4229 [inline]
flush_delayed_work+0x66/0x70 kernel/workqueue.c:4251
...
value changed: 0x0000000000400000 -> 0xffff88810006c00d
Reorganize the code so that @from_cancel is tested before @work->data is
accessed. The only problem is triggering KCSAN detection spuriously. This
shouldn't need READ_ONCE() or other access qualifiers.
No functional changes.