CVE-2023-53642

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

x86: fix clear_user_rep_good() exception handling annotation

This code no longer exists in mainline, because it was removed in commit d2c95f9d6802 ("x86: don't use REP_GOOD or ERMS for user memory clearing") upstream.

However, rather than backport the full range of x86 memory clearing and copying cleanups, fix the exception table annotation placement for the final 'rep movsb' in clear_user_rep_good(): rather than pointing at the actual instruction that did the user space access, it pointed to the register move just before it.

That made sense from a code flow standpoint, but not from an actual usage standpoint: it means that if user access takes an exception, the exception handler won't actually find the instruction in the exception tables.

As a result, rather than fixing it up and returning -EFAULT, it would then turn it into a kernel oops report instead, something like:

BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: 0000000020081000
#PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode
#PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page
...
RIP: 0010:clear_user_rep_good+0x1c/0x30 arch/x86/lib/clear_page_64.S:147
...
Call Trace:
  __clear_user arch/x86/include/asm/uaccess_64.h:103 [inline]
  clear_user arch/x86/include/asm/uaccess_64.h:124 [inline]
  iov_iter_zero+0x709/0x1290 lib/iov_iter.c:800
  iomap_dio_hole_iter fs/iomap/direct-io.c:389 [inline]
  iomap_dio_iter fs/iomap/direct-io.c:440 [inline]
  __iomap_dio_rw+0xe3d/0x1cd0 fs/iomap/direct-io.c:601
  iomap_dio_rw+0x40/0xa0 fs/iomap/direct-io.c:689
  ext4_dio_read_iter fs/ext4/file.c:94 [inline]
  ext4_file_read_iter+0x4be/0x690 fs/ext4/file.c:145
  call_read_iter include/linux/fs.h:2183 [inline]
  do_iter_readv_writev+0x2e0/0x3b0 fs/read_write.c:733
  do_iter_read+0x2f2/0x750 fs/read_write.c:796
  vfs_readv+0xe5/0x150 fs/read_write.c:916
  do_preadv+0x1b6/0x270...