Affected: Linux

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

net: phylink: add lock for serializing concurrent pl->phydev writes with resolver

Currently phylink_resolve() protects itself against concurrent phylink_bringup_phy() or phylink_disconnect_phy() calls which modify pl->phydev by relying on pl->state_mutex.

The problem is that in phylink_resolve(), pl->state_mutex is in a lock inversion state with pl->phydev->lock. So pl->phydev->lock needs to be acquired prior to pl->state_mutex. But that requires dereferencing pl->phydev in the first place, and without pl->state_mutex, that is racy.

Hence the reason for the extra lock. Currently it is redundant, but it will serve a functional purpose once mutex_lock(&phy->lock) will be moved outside of the mutex_lock(&pl->state_mutex) section.

Another alternative considered would have been to let phylink_resolve() acquire the rtnl_mutex, which is also held when phylink_bringup_phy() and phylink_disconnect_phy() are called. But since phylink_disconnect_phy() runs under rtnl_lock(), it would deadlock with phylink_resolve() when calling flush_work(&pl->resolve). Additionally, it would have been undesirable because it would have unnecessarily blocked many other call paths as well in the entire kernel, so the smaller-scoped lock was preferred.