CVE-2021-47587: net: systemport: Add global locking for descriptor lifecycle
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
net: systemport: Add global locking for descriptor lifecycle
The descriptor list is a shared resource across all of the transmit queues, and the locking mechanism used today only protects concurrency across a given transmit queue between the transmit and reclaiming. This creates an opportunity for the SYSTEMPORT hardware to work on corrupted descriptors if we have multiple producers at once which is the case when using multiple transmit queues.
This was particularly noticeable when using multiple flows/transmit queues and it showed up in interesting ways in that UDP packets would get a correct UDP header checksum being calculated over an incorrect packet length. Similarly TCP packets would get an equally correct checksum computed by the hardware over an incorrect packet length.
The SYSTEMPORT hardware maintains an internal descriptor list that it re-arranges when the driver produces a new descriptor anytime it writes to the WRITEPORT{HI,LO} registers, there is however some delay in the hardware to re-organize its descriptors and it is possible that concurrent TX queues eventually break this internal allocation scheme to the point where the length/status part of the descriptor gets used for an incorrect data buffer.
The fix is to impose a global serialization for all TX queues in the short section where we are writing to the WRITEPORT{HI,LO} registers which solves the corruption even with multiple concurrent TX queues being used.
Affected Software
Event History
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the severity of CVE-2021-47587?
CVE-2021-47587 is classified as a medium severity vulnerability in the Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2021-47587?
To remediate CVE-2021-47587, users should update their Linux kernel to the latest patched version.
What systems are affected by CVE-2021-47587?
CVE-2021-47587 affects multiple versions of the Linux kernel, specifically versions between 3.16 and 5.16-rc5.
What type of vulnerability is CVE-2021-47587?
CVE-2021-47587 is a concurrency issue related to the locking mechanism of the descriptor list in the Linux kernel.
Are there any workarounds for CVE-2021-47587?
Currently, there are no specific workarounds for CVE-2021-47587; patching is the recommended approach.