CVE-2024-26706

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

parisc: Fix random data corruption from exception handler

The current exception handler implementation, which assists when accessing user space memory, may exhibit random data corruption if the compiler decides to use a different register than the specified register %r29 (defined in ASM_EXCEPTIONTABLE_REG) for the error code. If the compiler choose another register, the fault handler will nevertheless store -EFAULT into %r29 and thus trash whatever this register is used for. Looking at the assembly I found that this happens sometimes in emulate_ldd().

To solve the issue, the easiest solution would be if it somehow is possible to tell the fault handler which register is used to hold the error code. Using %0 or %1 in the inline assembly is not posssible as it will show up as e.g. %r29 (with the "%r" prefix), which the GNU assembler can not convert to an integer.

This patch takes another, better and more flexible approach: We extend the __ex_table (which is out of the execution path) by one 32-word. In this word we tell the compiler to insert the assembler instruction "or %r0,%r0,%reg", where %reg references the register which the compiler choosed for the error return code. In case of an access failure, the fault handler finds the __ex_table entry and can examine the opcode. The used register is encoded in the lowest 5 bits, and the fault handler can then store -EFAULT into this register.

Since we extend the __ex_table to 3 words we can't use the BUILDTIME_TABLE_SORT config option any longer.

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.