Overview
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
netfilter: nf_tables: do not defer rule destruction via call_rcu
nf_tables_chain_destroy can sleep, it can't be used from call_rcu
callbacks.
Moreover, nf_tables_rule_release() is only safe for error unwinding,
while transaction mutex is held and the to-be-desroyed rule was not
exposed to either dataplane or dumps, as it deactives+frees without
the required synchronize_rcu() in-between.
nft_rule_expr_deactivate() callbacks will change ->use counters
of other chains/sets, see e.g. nft_lookup .deactivate callback, these
must be serialized via transaction mutex.
Also add a few lockdep asserts to make this more explicit.
Calling synchronize_rcu() isn't ideal, but fixing this without is hard
and way more intrusive. As-is, we can get:
WARNING: .. net/netfilter/nf_tables_api.c:5515 nft_set_destroy+0x..
Workqueue: events nf_tables_trans_destroy_work
RIP: 0010:nft_set_destroy+0x3fe/0x5c0
Call Trace:
<TASK>
nf_tables_trans_destroy_work+0x6b7/0xad0
process_one_work+0x64a/0xce0
worker_thread+0x613/0x10d0
In case the synchronize_rcu becomes an issue, we can explore alternatives.
One way would be to allocate nft_trans_rule objects + one nft_trans_chain
object, deactivate the rules + the chain and then defer the freeing to the
nft destroy workqueue. We'd still need to keep the synchronize_rcu path as
a fallback to handle -ENOMEM corner cases though.