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Crash: UAF in task_call_step_soon in _asynciomodule.c (with admittedly ridiculous setup) #126080

@Nico-Posada

Description

@Nico-Posada

Crash report

What happened?

This is basically an extension to #125984 but it took me a bit to get a working PoC because I have never used asyncio.Task ever.

The crash is caused because of a missing incref before calling call_soon in task_call_step_soon which allows us to corrupt task_context in an evil __getattribute__ class func before handing it off to call_soon. There's probably a much simpler way to trigger the crash but this is the only working route I found.

import asyncio import types @types.coroutine def gen(): # this just needs to stay alive after the first `send` call global catcher while True: yield catcher async def coro(): await gen() # this class is used to help return early from the Task.__init__ function just after # task_context gets set in the func class EvilStr: def __str__(self): raise Exception("break") class EvilLoop: def get_debug(self): return False def is_running(self): return True def call_soon(self, cb, *, context): # if it hasnt crashed for you at this point, you'll see this is the same obj that was just freed print("in call_soon", context) def __getattribute__(self, name): global ctx if name == "call_soon": try: # context needs to be `None` so that it uses Py_XSETREF instead of just using regular assignment task.__init__(co, loop=loop, context=None, name=EvilStr()) except: pass return object.__getattribute__(self, name) class TaskWakeupCatch: def __init__(self): self._asyncio_future_blocking = True def get_loop(self): global loop return loop # as far as i know, this is the only way to get access to the `task_wakeup` function # which is needed to abuse the UAF def add_done_callback(self, cb, *, context): global wakeup_fn if wakeup_fn == None: wakeup_fn = cb class DelTracker: def __del__(self): print("deleting", self) co = coro() loop = EvilLoop() catcher = TaskWakeupCatch() wakeup_fn = None task = asyncio.Task(co, loop=loop, eager_start=True, name="init") # set ctx to any obj you want to use after free # im using an obj that tells us when it's been freed so we can see the UAF in action ctx = DelTracker() try: # use exception trick to return early from the init func just after task_context gets set task.__init__(co, loop=loop, context=ctx, name=EvilStr()) except: pass del ctx minimal = lambda: ... minimal.result = lambda: None # only needs to be a function that doesnt error assert wakeup_fn is not None wakeup_fn(minimal)

Output:

deleting <__main__.DelTracker object at 0x7f28e01d5be0> in call_soon <__main__.DelTracker object at 0x7f28e01d5be0> Segmentation fault 

I am on a version of python that doesn't include all the recent fixes to asyncio, so just to confirm I was triggering this via task_call_step_soon I made sure to check the crash backtrace in gdb.

#0 _PyWeakref_GetWeakrefCount (obj=0x7ffff6f6dbe0) at Objects/weakrefobject.c:52 #1 _PyWeakref_GetWeakrefCount (obj=0x7ffff6f6dbe0) at Objects/weakrefobject.c:42 #2 PyObject_ClearWeakRefs (object=0x7ffff6f6dbe0) at Objects/weakrefobject.c:1018 #3 0x00005555556daf9e in subtype_dealloc (self=0x7ffff6f6dbe0) at Objects/typeobject.c:2322 #4 0x00005555557c4ec7 in Py_DECREF (op=<optimized out>) at ./Include/object.h:949 #5 Py_XDECREF (op=<optimized out>) at ./Include/object.h:1042 #6 _PyFrame_ClearLocals (frame=0x7ffff7afa0a0) at Python/frame.c:104 #7 _PyFrame_ClearExceptCode (frame=0x7ffff7afa0a0) at Python/frame.c:129 #8 0x0000555555796d47 in clear_thread_frame (frame=0x7ffff7afa0a0, tstate=0x555555adfc60 <_PyRuntime+282976>) at Python/ceval.c:1668 #9 _PyEval_FrameClearAndPop (tstate=0x555555adfc60 <_PyRuntime+282976>, frame=0x7ffff7afa0a0) at Python/ceval.c:1695 #10 0x00005555555db84f in _PyEval_EvalFrameDefault (tstate=0x7ffff6f6dd10, frame=0x7fffffffd680, throwflag=1437070368) at Python/generated_cases.c.h:5204 #11 0x0000555555644638 in _PyObject_VectorcallTstate (kwnames=0x7ffff713db10, nargsf=2, args=0x7fffffffd7f0, callable=0x7ffff6dc00e0, tstate=0x555555adfc60 <_PyRuntime+282976>) at ./Include/internal/pycore_call.h:168 #12 method_vectorcall (method=<optimized out>, args=0x7fffffffd7f8, nargsf=<optimized out>, kwnames=0x7ffff713db10) at Objects/classobject.c:62 #13 0x0000555555641743 in _PyObject_VectorcallTstate (kwnames=0x7ffff713db10, nargsf=<optimized out>, args=0x7fffffffd7f8, callable=0x7ffff6f588c0, tstate=0x555555adfc60 <_PyRuntime+282976>) at ./Include/internal/pycore_call.h:168 #14 PyObject_VectorcallMethod (name=<optimized out>, args=0x7fffffffd7f8, args@entry=0x7fffffffd7f0, nargsf=<optimized out>, nargsf@entry=9223372036854775810, kwnames=0x7ffff713db10) at Objects/call.c:856 #15 0x00007ffff7021504 in call_soon (ctx=<optimized out>, arg=0x0, func=0x7ffff6f5f100, loop=<optimized out>, state=0x7ffff7098b30) at ./Modules/_asynciomodule.c:311 #16 task_call_step_soon (state=state@entry=0x7ffff7098b30, task=task@entry=0x7ffff6f54c00, arg=arg@entry=0x7ffff7a61b40) at ./Modules/_asynciomodule.c:2677 #17 0x00007ffff70216a9 in task_set_error_soon (state=state@entry=0x7ffff7098b30, task=task@entry=0x7ffff6f54c00, et=<optimized out>, format=<optimized out>) at ./Modules/_asynciomodule.c:2703 #18 0x00007ffff7022043 in task_step_handle_result_impl (result=<optimized out>, task=0x7ffff6f54c00, state=0x7ffff7098b30) at ./Modules/_asynciomodule.c:3052 #19 task_step_impl (state=state@entry=0x7ffff7098b30, task=task@entry=0x7ffff6f54c00, exc=<optimized out>, exc@entry=0x0) at ./Modules/_asynciomodule.c:2847 #20 0x00007ffff7023327 in task_step (state=0x7ffff7098b30, task=0x7ffff6f54c00, exc=0x0) at ./Modules/_asynciomodule.c:3073 

The fix for this is to just incref task->task_context before calling call_soon to avoid deleting it in the evil func

int ret = call_soon(state, task->task_loop, cb, NULL, task->task_context);
Py_DECREF(cb);
return ret;
}

CPython versions tested on:

3.13

Operating systems tested on:

Linux

Output from running 'python -VV' on the command line:

Python 3.13.0 (tags/v3.13.0:60403a5409f, Oct 10 2024, 09:24:12) [GCC 13.2.0]

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3.12only security fixes3.13bugs and security fixes3.14bugs and security fixesextension-modulesC modules in the Modules dirtopic-asynciotype-crashA hard crash of the interpreter, possibly with a core dump

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