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Fencer Intel
medium 5.5

CVE-2021-46957 json

riscv/kprobe: fix kernel panic when invoking sys_read traced by kprobe

published 2y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2021-33605

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 10%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

riscv/kprobe: fix kernel panic when invoking sys_read traced by kprobe

The execution of sys_read end up hitting a BUG_ON() in __find_get_block after installing kprobe at sys_read, the BUG message like the following:

[ 65.708663] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [ 65.709987] kernel BUG at fs/buffer.c:1251! [ 65.711283] Kernel BUG [#1] [ 65.712032] Modules linked in: [ 65.712925] CPU: 0 PID: 51 Comm: sh Not tainted 5.12.0-rc4 #1 [ 65.714407] Hardware name: riscv-virtio,qemu (DT) [ 65.715696] epc : __find_get_block+0x218/0x2c8 [ 65.716835] ra : __getblk_gfp+0x1c/0x4a [ 65.717831] epc : ffffffe00019f11e ra : ffffffe00019f56a sp : ffffffe002437930 [ 65.719553] gp : ffffffe000f06030 tp : ffffffe0015abc00 t0 : ffffffe00191e038 [ 65.721290] t1 : ffffffe00191e038 t2 : 000000000000000a s0 : ffffffe002437960 [ 65.723051] s1 : ffffffe00160ad00 a0 : ffffffe00160ad00 a1 : 000000000000012a [ 65.724772] a2 : 0000000000000400 a3 : 0000000000000008 a4 : 0000000000000040 [ 65.726545] a5 : 0000000000000000 a6 : ffffffe00191e000 a7 : 0000000000000000 [ 65.728308] s2 : 000000000000012a s3 : 0000000000000400 s4 : 0000000000000008 [ 65.730049] s5 : 000000000000006c s6 : ffffffe00240f800 s7 : ffffffe000f080a8 [ 65.731802] s8 : 0000000000000001 s9 : 000000000000012a s10: 0000000000000008 [ 65.733516] s11: 0000000000000008 t3 : 00000000000003ff t4 : 000000000000000f [ 65.734434] t5 : 00000000000003ff t6 : 0000000000040000 [ 65.734613] status: 0000000000000100 badaddr: 0000000000000000 cause: 0000000000000003 [ 65.734901] Call Trace: [ 65.735076] [<ffffffe00019f11e>] __find_get_block+0x218/0x2c8 [ 65.735417] [<ffffffe00020017a>] __ext4_get_inode_loc+0xb2/0x2f6 [ 65.735618] [<ffffffe000201b6c>] ext4_get_inode_loc+0x3a/0x8a [ 65.735802] [<ffffffe000203380>] ext4_reserve_inode_write+0x2e/0x8c [ 65.735999] [<ffffffe00020357a>] __ext4_mark_inode_dirty+0x4c/0x18e [ 65.736208] [<ffffffe000206bb0>] ext4_dirty_inode+0x46/0x66 [ 65.736387] [<ffffffe000192914>] __mark_inode_dirty+0x12c/0x3da [ 65.736576] [<ffffffe000180dd2>] touch_atime+0x146/0x150 [ 65.736748] [<ffffffe00010d762>] filemap_read+0x234/0x246 [ 65.736920] [<ffffffe00010d834>] generic_file_read_iter+0xc0/0x114 [ 65.737114] [<ffffffe0001f5d7a>] ext4_file_read_iter+0x42/0xea [ 65.737310] [<ffffffe000163f2c>] new_sync_read+0xe2/0x15a [ 65.737483] [<ffffffe000165814>] vfs_read+0xca/0xf2 [ 65.737641] [<ffffffe000165bae>] ksys_read+0x5e/0xc8 [ 65.737816] [<ffffffe000165c26>] sys_read+0xe/0x16 [ 65.737973] [<ffffffe000003972>] ret_from_syscall+0x0/0x2 [ 65.738858] ---[ end trace fe93f985456c935d ]---

A simple reproducer looks like: echo 'p:myprobe sys_read fd=%a0 buf=%a1 count=%a2' > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/kprobe_events echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kprobes/myprobe/enable cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace

Here's what happens to hit that BUG_ON():

1) After installing kprobe at entry of sys_read, the first instruction is replaced by 'ebreak' instruction on riscv64 platform.

2) Once kernel reach the 'ebreak' instruction at the entry of sys_read, it trap into the riscv breakpoint handler, where it do something to setup for coming single-step of origin instruction, including backup the 'sstatus' in pt_regs, followed by disable interrupt during single stepping via clear 'SIE' bit of 'sstatus' in pt_regs.

3) Then kernel restore to the instruction slot contains two instructions, one is original instruction at entry of sys_read, the other is 'ebreak'. Here it trigger a 'Instruction page fault' exception (value at 'scause' is '0xc'), if PF is not filled into PageTabe for that slot yet.

4) Again kernel trap into page fault exception handler, where it choose different policy according to the state of running kprobe. Because afte 2) the state is KPROBE_HIT_SS, so kernel reset the current kp ---truncated---

Patch / fix

Is CVE-2021-46957 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2021-46957 updated cvss 4.4

kernel: riscv/kprobe: fix kernel panic when invoking sys_read traced by kprobe

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2y ago

Exploit prediction

0.21% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 10% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.