CVE-2026-45866

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

serial: caif: fix use-after-free in caif_serial ldisc_close()

There is a use-after-free bug in caif_serial where handle_tx() may access ser->tty after the tty has been freed.

The race condition occurs between ldisc_close() and packet transmission:

CPU 0 (close)                     CPU 1 (xmit)
-------------                     ------------
ldisc_close()
  tty_kref_put(ser->tty)
  [tty may be freed here]
                 <-- race window -->
                                  caif_xmit()
                                    handle_tx()
                                      tty = ser->tty  // dangling ptr
                                      tty->ops->write() // UAF!
  schedule_work()
    ser_release()
      unregister_netdevice()

The root cause is that tty_kref_put() is called in ldisc_close() while the network device is still active and can receive packets.

Since ser and tty have a 1:1 binding relationship with consistent lifecycles (ser is allocated in ldisc_open and freed in ser_release via unregister_netdevice, and each ser binds exactly one tty), we can safely defer the tty reference release to ser_release() where the network device is unregistered.

Fix this by moving tty_kref_put() from ldisc_close() to ser_release(), after unregister_netdevice(). This ensures the tty reference is held as long as the network device exists, preventing the UAF.

Note: We save ser->tty before unregister_netdevice() because ser is embedded in netdev's private data and will be freed along with netdev (needs_free_netdev = true).

How to reproduce: Add mdelay(500) at the beginning of ldisc_close() to widen the race window, then run the reproducer program 1.

Note: There is a separate deadloop issue in handle_tx() when using PORT_UNKNOWN serial ports (e.g., /dev/ttyS3 in QEMU without proper serial backend). This deadloop exists even without this patch, and is likely caused by inconsistency between uart_write_room() and uart_write() in serial core. It has been addressed in a separate patch 2.

KASAN report:

================================================================== BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in handle_tx+0x5d1/0x620 Read of size 1 at addr ffff8881131e1490 by task caif_uaf_trigge/9929

Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0x10e/0x1f0 print_report+0xd0/0x630 kasan_report+0xe4/0x120 handle_tx+0x5d1/0x620 dev_hard_start_xmit+0x9d/0x6c0 __dev_queue_xmit+0x6e2/0x4410 packet_xmit+0x243/0x360 packet_sendmsg+0x26cf/0x5500 __sys_sendto+0x4a3/0x520 __x64_sys_sendto+0xe0/0x1c0 do_syscall_64+0xc9/0xf80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f RIP: 0033:0x7f615df2c0d7

Allocated by task 9930:

Freed by task 64:

Last potentially related work creation:

The buggy address belongs to the object at ffff8881131e1000 which belongs to the cache kmalloc-cg-2k of size 2048 The buggy address is located 1168 bytes inside of freed 2048-byte region [ffff8881131e1000, ffff8881131e1800)

The buggy address belongs to the physical page: page_owner tracks the page as allocated page last free pid 9778 tgid 9778 stack trace:

Memory state around the buggy address: ffff8881131e1380: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb ffff8881131e1400: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb >ffff8881131e1480: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb ^ ffff8881131e1500: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb ffff8881131e1580: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb

Affected Software

Weaknesses

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5e266ba8d330d3b8e5bc198f238cd8901826cfa1
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d3c75db4e0460641dbcd274b40867e252d801da1
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4e63d6f68544ae5269ac9735ae5b69b59b5b8725
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/331e2b7051635780edea248dd08ae2026c126f4a
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/52731ef4438155cea782fac74e547a327ab9e7c5
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c8c197aaa56b25a2d54f3aa07e27e228d6c08546
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/40962f2bf8cdba63af23aec95ad3f49b689e58e2
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/308e7e4d0a846359685f40aade023aee7b27284c

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