Bug 2348100 (CVE-2022-49707)

Summary:	CVE-2022-49707 kernel: ext4: add reserved GDT blocks check
Product:	[Other] Security Response	Reporter:	OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component:	vulnerability	Assignee:	Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status:	NEW ---	QA Contact:
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	unspecified	CC:	dfreiber, drow, jburrell, vkumar
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	Security
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:	A flaw was found in the ext4 module in the Linux kernel. Resizing a corrupt ext4 image can cause a NULL pointer dereference due to a missing check if the reserved GDT blocks is zero when the resize_inode feature is disabled, resulting in a denial of service.	Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:		Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-02-26 03:17:37 UTC

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

ext4: add reserved GDT blocks check

We capture a NULL pointer issue when resizing a corrupt ext4 image which
is freshly clear resize_inode feature (not run e2fsck). It could be
simply reproduced by following steps. The problem is because of the
resize_inode feature was cleared, and it will convert the filesystem to
meta_bg mode in ext4_resize_fs(), but the es->s_reserved_gdt_blocks was
not reduced to zero, so could we mistakenly call reserve_backup_gdb()
and passing an uninitialized resize_inode to it when adding new group
descriptors.

 mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda 3G
 tune2fs -O ^resize_inode /dev/sda #forget to run requested e2fsck
 mount /dev/sda /mnt
 resize2fs /dev/sda 8G

 ========
 BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000028
 CPU: 19 PID: 3243 Comm: resize2fs Not tainted 5.18.0-rc7-00001-gfde086c5ebfd #748
 ...
 RIP: 0010:ext4_flex_group_add+0xe08/0x2570
 ...
 Call Trace:
  <TASK>
  ext4_resize_fs+0xbec/0x1660
  __ext4_ioctl+0x1749/0x24e0
  ext4_ioctl+0x12/0x20
  __x64_sys_ioctl+0xa6/0x110
  do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x90
  entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae
 RIP: 0033:0x7f2dd739617b
 ========

The fix is simple, add a check in ext4_resize_begin() to make sure that
the es->s_reserved_gdt_blocks is zero when the resize_inode feature is
disabled.

Comment 3 Avinash Hanwate 2025-02-27 18:32:45 UTC

Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2025022630-CVE-2022-49707-c4b7@gregkh/T