Improper Input Validation Affecting kernel package, versions *

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel package and not the kernel package as distributed by Centos. See How to fix? for Centos:7 relevant fixed versions and status.

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

mm, slub: do not call do_slab_free for kfence object

In 782f8906f805 the freeing of kfence objects was moved from deep inside do_slab_free to the wrapper functions outside. This is a nice change, but unfortunately it missed one spot in __kmem_cache_free_bulk.

This results in a crash like this:

BUG skbuff_head_cache (Tainted: G S B E ): Padding overwritten. 0xffff88907fea0f00-0xffff88907fea0fff @offset=3840

slab_err (mm/slub.c:1129) free_to_partial_list (mm/slub.c:? mm/slub.c:4036) slab_pad_check (mm/slub.c:864 mm/slub.c:1290) check_slab (mm/slub.c:?) free_to_partial_list (mm/slub.c:3171 mm/slub.c:4036) kmem_cache_alloc_bulk (mm/slub.c:? mm/slub.c:4495 mm/slub.c:4586 mm/slub.c:4635) napi_build_skb (net/core/skbuff.c:348 net/core/skbuff.c:527 net/core/skbuff.c:549)

All the other callers to do_slab_free appear to be ok.

Add a kfence_free check in __kmem_cache_free_bulk to avoid the crash.

• https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-44973
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a371d558e6f3aed977a8a7346350557de5d25190
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b35cd7f1e969aaa63e6716d82480f6b8a3230949