CVE-2022-49350

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

net: mdio: unexport __init-annotated mdio_bus_init()

EXPORT_SYMBOL and __init is a bad combination because the .init.text section is freed up after the initialization. Hence, modules cannot use symbols annotated __init. The access to a freed symbol may end up with kernel panic.

modpost used to detect it, but it has been broken for a decade.

Recently, I fixed modpost so it started to warn it again, then this showed up in linux-next builds.

There are two ways to fix it:

• Remove __init
• Remove EXPORT_SYMBOL

I chose the latter for this case because the only in-tree call-site, drivers/net/phy/phy_device.c is never compiled as modular. (CONFIG_PHYLIB is boolean)

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.