In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ftrace: Fix NULL pointer dereference in is_ftrace_trampoline when ftrace is dead
ftrace_startup does not remove ops from ftrace_ops_list when
ftrace_startup_enable fails:
register_ftrace_function
ftrace_startup
__register_ftrace_function
...
add_ftrace_ops(&ftrace_ops_list, ops)
...
...
ftrace_startup_enable // if ftrace failed to modify, ftrace_disabled is set to 1
...
return 0 // ops is in the ftrace_ops_list.
When ftrace_disabled = 1, unregister_ftrace_function simply returns without doing anything:
unregister_ftrace_function
ftrace_shutdown
if (unlikely(ftrace_disabled))
return -ENODEV; // return here, __unregister_ftrace_function is not executed,
// as a result, ops is still in the ftrace_ops_list
__unregister_ftrace_function
...
If ops is dynamically allocated, it will be free later, in this case,
is_ftrace_trampoline accesses NULL pointer:
is_ftrace_trampoline
ftrace_ops_trampoline
do_for_each_ftrace_op(op, ftrace_ops_list) // OOPS! op may be NULL!
Syzkaller reports as follows:
[ 1203.506103] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 000000000000010b
[ 1203.508039] #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode
[ 1203.508798] #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page
[ 1203.509558] PGD 800000011660b067 P4D 800000011660b067 PUD 130fb8067 PMD 0
[ 1203.510560] Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN PTI
[ 1203.511189] CPU: 6 PID: 29532 Comm: syz-executor.2 Tainted: G B W 5.10.0 #8
[ 1203.512324] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.14.0-0-g155821a1990b-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014
[ 1203.513895] RIP: 0010:is_ftrace_trampoline+0x26/0xb0
[ 1203.514644] Code: ff eb d3 90 41 55 41 54 49 89 fc 55 53 e8 f2 00 fd ff 48 8b 1d 3b 35 5d 03 e8 e6 00 fd ff 48 8d bb 90 00 00 00 e8 2a 81 26 00 <48> 8b ab 90 00 00 00 48 85 ed 74 1d e8 c9 00 fd ff 48 8d bb 98 00
[ 1203.518838] RSP: 0018:ffffc900012cf960 EFLAGS: 00010246
[ 1203.520092] RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 000000000000007b RCX: ffffffff8a331866
[ 1203.521469] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000008 RDI: 000000000000010b
[ 1203.522583] RBP: 0000000000000000 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: ffffffff8df18b07
[ 1203.523550] R10: fffffbfff1be3160 R11: 0000000000000001 R12: 0000000000478399
[ 1203.524596] R13: 0000000000000000 R14: ffff888145088000 R15: 0000000000000008
[ 1203.525634] FS: 00007f429f5f4700(0000) GS:ffff8881daf00000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
[ 1203.526801] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
[ 1203.527626] CR2: 000000000000010b CR3: 0000000170e1e001 CR4: 00000000003706e0
[ 1203.528611] DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000
[ 1203.529605] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400
Therefore, when ftrace_startup_enable fails, we need to rollback registration
process and remove ops from ftrace_ops_list.
Publication date: Wed, 18 Jun 2025 11:00:00 +0000