CyberRota Analysis
AI-GeneratedThe vulnerability affects the Linux kernel's handling of dynamic trace events, where the 'module' pointer and the 'refcnt' variable share the same memory space, leading to potential NULL or invalid pointer dereferences. This can result in kernel crashes when filtering or setting events for specific modules, particularly under conditions where dynamic events are active. Organizations using Linux in critical environments should prioritize addressing this issue to prevent system instability and potential service disruptions.
Original NVD Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tracing: Fix union collision of module and refcnt for dynamic events In 'struct trace_event_call', the 'module' pointer and the 'refcnt' atomic variable share the same memory space in a union. For dynamic events, the union member is 'refcnt', which acts as an active reference counter. When a dynamic event (such as kprobe, uprobe, fprobe, eprobe, or wprobe) has a non-zero reference count (e.g. due to active event triggers or perf attachments), its 'call->module' evaluates to a small non-zero integer instead of NULL. When filtering or setting events for a specific module (e.g., writing ':mod:<module>' to 'set_event'), the code in '__ftrace_set_clr_event_nolock()' and 'update_event_fields()' reads 'call->module' directly without checking whether the event is dynamic. This causes the kernel to treat the small integer (refcnt) as a 'struct module' pointer, leading to a NULL/invalid pointer dereference (Oops) when dereferencing the module name. Fix this by ensuring that the 'TRACE_EVENT_FL_DYNAMIC' flag is checked before treating 'call->module' as a valid pointer in these code paths.