FreeBSD 7.2 and below (including 6.4) are vulnerable to race condition in VFS and devfs code, resulting in NULL pointer dereference. In contrast to pipe race condition, this vulnerability is actually much harder to exploit. Due to uninitalised value in devfs_open(), following function is called with fp->f_vnode = 0: static int devfs_fp_check(struct file *fp, struct cdev **devp, struct cdevsw **dswp) { *dswp = devvn_refthread(fp->f_vnode, devp); if (*devp != fp->f_data) { if (*dswp != NULL) [6] dev_relthread(*devp); return (ENXIO); } KASSERT((*devp)->si_refcount > 0, ("devfs: un-referenced struct cdev *(%s)", devtoname(*devp))); if (*dswp == NULL) return (ENXIO); curthread->td_fpop = fp; return (0); } struct cdevsw * devvn_refthread(struct vnode *vp, struct cdev **devp) { struct cdevsw *csw; struct cdev_priv *cdp; mtx_assert(&devmtx, MA_NOTOWNED); csw = NULL; dev_lock(); [1] *devp = vp->v_rdev; if (*devp != NULL) { [2] cdp = (*devp)->si_priv; [3] if ((cdp->cdp_flags & CDP_SCHED_DTR) == 0) { [4] csw = (*devp)->si_devsw; if (csw != NULL) [5] (*devp)->si_threadcount++; } } dev_unlock(); return (csw); } In [1] vp is dereferenced, resulting in user-controllable *devp pointer (loaded from *0x1c). If values dereferenced in [2], [3] and [4] are reachable, at [5] we have memory write at user-controllable address. Unfortunately, the value is decremented in [6]. In my exploit, I use si_threadcount incrementation to modify kernel code in devfs_fp_check(). Opcode at 0xc076c64b is "je" (0x74). After incrementation it changes to 0x75, which is "jne". Such modification results in not calling dev_relthread() at [6] and eventually leads to function pointer call in devfs_kqfilter_f(). The following exploit code works only on default 7.2 kernel, due to hardcoded addresses: http://www.frasunek.com/devfs.txt This bug was fixed a week ago and official advisory was issued: http://security.freebsd.org/advisories/FreeBSD-SA-09:14.devfs.asc -- * Fido: 2:480/124 ** WWW: http://www.frasunek.com ** NICHDL: PMF9-RIPE * * Jabber ID: venglin@xxxxxxxx ** PGP ID: 2578FCAD ** HAM-RADIO: SQ5JIV *