Fix a use after free bug in kernel->userspace relay file support

Coverity spotted what looks like a real possible case of using a variable
after it has been freed.  The problem is in
kernel/relay.c::relay_open_buf()

If the code hits "goto free_buf;" it ends up in this code :

  free_buf:
    	relay_destroy_buf(buf);	<--- calls kfree() on 'buf'.
  free_name:
   	kfree(tmpname);
  end:
  	return buf;		<-- use after free of 'buf'.

I read through the callers and they all handle a NULL return from this
function as an error (and hitting the 'free_buf' label only happens on
failure to chan->cb->create_buf_file(), so that looks like a clear error to
me).

The patch simply sets 'buf' to NULL after the call to
relay_destroy_buf(buf); - as far as I can see that should take care of the
problem.

The patch also corrects a reference to a documentation file while
I was at it.

Note from Mathieu: the documentation reference change should have been
done in a separate patch, but I guess no one will really care.

Signed-off-by: Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@gmail.com>
Acked-by: "David J. Wilder" <wilder@us.ibm.com>
Tested-by: "David J. Wilder" <wilder@us.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@polymtl.ca>
Cc: Tom Zanussi <zanussi@us.ibm.com>
Cc: Karim Yaghmour <karim@opersys.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

diff --git a/kernel/relay.c b/kernel/relay.c
index 510fbbd7b5004e6ccbfd0fa55465621861c5cc8c..ad855017bc59de72ebf592fda7576edf6e245bb4 100644 (file)
--- a/kernel/relay.c
+++ b/kernel/relay.c
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 /*
  * Public API and common code for kernel->userspace relay file support.
  *
- * See Documentation/filesystems/relayfs.txt for an overview of relayfs.
+ * See Documentation/filesystems/relay.txt for an overview.
  *
  * Copyright (C) 2002-2005 - Tom Zanussi (zanussi@us.ibm.com), IBM Corp
  * Copyright (C) 1999-2005 - Karim Yaghmour (karim@opersys.com)
@@ -426,6 +426,7 @@ static struct rchan_buf *relay_open_buf(struct rchan *chan, unsigned int cpu)
 
 free_buf:
        relay_destroy_buf(buf);
+       buf = NULL;
 free_name:
        kfree(tmpname);
 end: