There is a race window where BPF hash map elements can leak special
fields if the program with access to the map value recreates these
special fields between the check_and_free_fields done on the map value
and its eventual return to the memory allocator.
Several ways were explored prior to this patch, most notably [0] tried
to use a poison value to reject attempts to recreate special fields for
map values that have been logically deleted but still accessible to BPF
programs (either while sitting in the free list or when reused). While
this approach works well for task work, timers, wq, etc., it is harder
to apply the idea to kptrs, which have a similar race and failure mode.
Instead, we change bpf_mem_alloc to allow registering destructor for
allocated elements, such that when they are returned to the allocator,
any special fields created while they were accessible to programs in the
mean time will be freed. If these values get reused, we do not free the
fields again before handing the element back. The special fields thus
may remain initialized while the map value sits in a free list.
When bpf_mem_alloc is retired in the future, a similar concept can be
introduced to kmalloc_nolock-backed kmem_cache, paired with the existing
idea of a constructor.
Note that the destructor registration happens in map_check_btf, after
the BTF record is populated and (at that point) avaiable for inspection
and duplication. Duplication is necessary since the freeing of embedded
bpf_mem_alloc can be decoupled from actual map lifetime due to logic
introduced to reduce the cost of rcu_barrier()s in mem alloc free path in
9f2c6e96c6 ("bpf: Optimize rcu_barrier usage between hash map and bpf_mem_alloc.").
As such, once all callbacks are done, we must also free the duplicated
record. To remove dependency on the bpf_map itself, also stash the key
size of the map to obtain value from htab_elem long after the map is
gone.
[0]: https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/20260216131341.1285427-1-mykyta.yatsenko5@gmail.com
Fixes: 14a324f6a6 ("bpf: Wire up freeing of referenced kptr")
Fixes: 1bfbc267ec ("bpf: Enable bpf_timer and bpf_wq in any context")
Reported-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
Tested-by: syzbot@syzkaller.appspotmail.com
Signed-off-by: Kumar Kartikeya Dwivedi <memxor@gmail.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20260227224806.646888-2-memxor@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
1df97a7453