Bug 2356616 (CVE-2025-21943)

Summary: CVE-2025-21943 kernel: gpio: aggregator: protect driver attr handlers against module unload
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: dfreiber, drow, jburrell, vkumar
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-04-01 16:02:42 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

gpio: aggregator: protect driver attr handlers against module unload

Both new_device_store and delete_device_store touch module global
resources (e.g. gpio_aggregator_lock). To prevent race conditions with
module unload, a reference needs to be held.

Add try_module_get() in these handlers.

For new_device_store, this eliminates what appears to be the most dangerous
scenario: if an id is allocated from gpio_aggregator_idr but
platform_device_register has not yet been called or completed, a concurrent
module unload could fail to unregister/delete the device, leaving behind a
dangling platform device/GPIO forwarder. This can result in various issues.
The following simple reproducer demonstrates these problems:

  #!/bin/bash
  while :; do
    # note: whether 'gpiochip0 0' exists or not does not matter.
    echo 'gpiochip0 0' > /sys/bus/platform/drivers/gpio-aggregator/new_device
  done &
  while :; do
    modprobe gpio-aggregator
    modprobe -r gpio-aggregator
  done &
  wait

  Starting with the following warning, several kinds of warnings will appear
  and the system may become unstable:

  ------------[ cut here ]------------
  list_del corruption, ffff888103e2e980->next is LIST_POISON1 (dead000000000100)
  WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 1327 at lib/list_debug.c:56 __list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0xa3/0x120
  [...]
  RIP: 0010:__list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0xa3/0x120
  [...]
  Call Trace:
   <TASK>
   ? __list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0xa3/0x120
   ? __warn.cold+0x93/0xf2
   ? __list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0xa3/0x120
   ? report_bug+0xe6/0x170
   ? __irq_work_queue_local+0x39/0xe0
   ? handle_bug+0x58/0x90
   ? exc_invalid_op+0x13/0x60
   ? asm_exc_invalid_op+0x16/0x20
   ? __list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0xa3/0x120
   gpiod_remove_lookup_table+0x22/0x60
   new_device_store+0x315/0x350 [gpio_aggregator]
   kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x137/0x1f0
   vfs_write+0x262/0x430
   ksys_write+0x60/0xd0
   do_syscall_64+0x6c/0x180
   entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e
   [...]
   </TASK>
  ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---