Affected: Linux

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

net, neigh: Do not trigger immediate probes on NUD_FAILED from neigh_managed_work

syzkaller was able to trigger a deadlock for NTF_MANAGED entries [0]:

kworker/0:16/14617 is trying to acquire lock: ffffffff8d4dd370 (&tbl->lock){++-.}-{2:2}, at: ___neigh_create+0x9e1/0x2990 net/core/neighbour.c:652 [...] but task is already holding lock: ffffffff8d4dd370 (&tbl->lock){++-.}-{2:2}, at: neigh_managed_work+0x35/0x250 net/core/neighbour.c:1572

The neighbor entry turned to NUD_FAILED state, where __neigh_event_send() triggered an immediate probe as per commit cd28ca0a3dd1 ("neigh: reduce arp latency") via neigh_probe() given table lock was held.

One option to fix this situation is to defer the neigh_probe() back to the neigh_timer_handler() similarly as pre cd28ca0a3dd1. For the case of NTF_MANAGED, this deferral is acceptable given this only happens on actual failure state and regular / expected state is NUD_VALID with the entry already present.

The fix adds a parameter to __neigh_event_send() in order to communicate whether immediate probe is allowed or disallowed. Existing call-sites of neigh_event_send() default as-is to immediate probe. However, the neigh_managed_work() disables it via use of neigh_event_send_probe().

[0] <TASK> __dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:88 [inline] dump_stack_lvl+0xcd/0x134 lib/dump_stack.c:106 print_deadlock_bug kernel/locking/lockdep.c:2956 [inline] check_deadlo…