CVE-2024-53176: linux kernel vulnerability

What is known

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: smb: During unmount, ensure all cached dir instances drop their dentry The unmount process (cifs_kill_sb() calling close_all_cached_dirs()) can race with various cached directory operations, which ultimately results in dentries not being dropped and these kernel BUGs: BUG: Dentry ffff88814f37e358{i=1000000000080,n=/} still in use (2) [unmount of cifs cifs] VFS: Busy inodes after unmount of cifs (cifs) ------------[ cut here ]------------ kernel BUG at fs/super.c:661! This happens when a cfid is in the process of being cleaned up when, and has been removed from the cfids->entries list, including: - Receiving a lease break from the server - Server reconnection triggers invalidate_all_cached_dirs(), which removes all the cfids from the list - The laundromat thread decides to expire an old cfid. To solve these problems, dropping the dentry is done in queued work done in a newly-added cfid_put_wq workqueue, and close_all_cached_dirs() flushes that workqueue after it drops all the dentries of which it's aware. This is a global workqueue (rather than scoped to a mount), but the queued work is minimal. The final cleanup work for cleaning up a cfid is performed via work queued in the serverclose_wq workqueue; this is done separate from dropping the dentries so that close_all_cached_dirs() doesn't block on any server operations. Both of these queued works expect to invoked with a cfid reference and a tcon reference to avoid those objects from being freed while the work is ongoing. While we're here, add proper locking to close_all_cached_dirs(), and locking around the freeing of cfid->dentry.

Business impact

Successful exploitation of CVE-2024-53176, a critical vulnerability (CVSS 9.8) affecting linux kernel, may affect the confidentiality, integrity or availability of the vulnerable environment. The exact impact depends on the installed version, exposed interfaces and deployment configuration.

Recommended administrator action

Confirm whether linux kernel is present and compare installed versions with the vendor advisory and NVD record. Apply the vendor patch or documented mitigation; until remediation is complete, reduce exposure of affected interfaces, review relevant logs and monitor for indicators of exploitation. DataHouse can support version verification, managed patching, network exposure reduction, log review and backup validation for dedicated, cloud and colocated environments.

Sources

• NVD
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