In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ovpn: respect peer refcount in CMD_NEW_PEER error path
ovpn_nl_peer_new_doit()’s error path calls ovpn_peer_release() directly
rather than ovpn_peer_put(), bypassing the kref. The accompanying
comment (“peer was not yet hashed, thus it is not used in any context”)
holds for UDP but not for TCP.
For UDP, the ovpn_socket union uses the .ovpn arm and never points back
at a peer; UDP encap_recv looks up peers via the not-yet-populated
hashtables, so the new peer is unreachable until ovpn_peer_add()
publishes it.
For TCP, ovpn_socket_new() sets ovpn_sock->peer and
ovpn_tcp_socket_attach() publishes ovpn_sock via rcu_assign_sk_user_data().
From that moment until ovpn_socket_release() detaches in the error path,
the TCP fd is fully wired: userspace recvmsg / sendmsg / close / poll
on the fd, as well as the strparser-driven ovpn_tcp_rcv() path, can
reach the peer through sk_user_data -> ovpn_sock->peer and bump its
refcount via ovpn_peer_hold().
ovpn_tcp_socket_wait_finish() (called inside ovpn_socket_release())
drains strparser and the tx work, but does not synchronize with
userspace syscall callers that already hold a peer reference. If
ovpn_nl_peer_modify() or ovpn_peer_add() returns an error while such
a caller is in flight – notably an ovpn_tcp_recvmsg() blocked in
__skb_recv_datagram() on peer->tcp.user_queue – the direct
ovpn_peer_release() destroys the peer while the caller still holds
the reference, and the eventual ovpn_peer_put() from that caller
operates on freed memory.
Replace the direct destructor call with ovpn_peer_put() so the kref
correctly defers destruction until the last reference is dropped.
In the common case where no concurrent user is present, behaviour is
unchanged: the kref hits zero immediately and ovpn_peer_release_kref()
runs the same destructor.
With this conversion ovpn_peer_release() has no callers outside peer.c
– ovpn_peer_release_kref() in the same translation unit is the only
remaining user – so make it static and drop its declaration from
peer.h.
