03a9e24ef2
Recently I receive a bug report that on Linux v3.0 based kerenl, hot add
disk to a md linear device causes kernel crash at linear_congested(). From
the crash image analysis, I find in linear_congested(), mddev->raid_disks
contains value N, but conf->disks[] only has N-1 pointers available. Then
a NULL pointer deference crashes the kernel.
There is a race between linear_add() and linear_congested(), RCU stuffs
used in these two functions cannot avoid the race. Since Linuv v4.0
RCU code is replaced by introducing mddev_suspend(). After checking the
upstream code, it seems linear_congested() is not called in
generic_make_request() code patch, so mddev_suspend() cannot provent it
from being called. The possible race still exists.
Here I explain how the race still exists in current code. For a machine
has many CPUs, on one CPU, linear_add() is called to add a hard disk to a
md linear device; at the same time on other CPU, linear_congested() is
called to detect whether this md linear device is congested before issuing
an I/O request onto it.
Now I use a possible code execution time sequence to demo how the possible
race happens,
seq linear_add() linear_congested()
0 conf=mddev->private
1 oldconf=mddev->private
2 mddev->raid_disks++
3 for (i=0; i<mddev->raid_disks;i++)
4 bdev_get_queue(conf->disks[i].rdev->bdev)
5 mddev->private=newconf
In linear_add() mddev->raid_disks is increased in time seq 2, and on
another CPU in linear_congested() the for-loop iterates conf->disks[i] by
the increased mddev->raid_disks in time seq 3,4. But conf with one more
element (which is a pointer to struct dev_info type) to conf->disks[] is
not updated yet, accessing its structure member in time seq 4 will cause a
NULL pointer deference fault.
To fix this race, there are 2 parts of modification in the patch,
1) Add 'int raid_disks' in struct linear_conf, as a copy of
mddev->raid_disks. It is initialized in linear_conf(), always being
consistent with pointers number of 'struct dev_info disks[]'. When
iterating conf->disks[] in linear_congested(), use conf->raid_disks to
replace mddev->raid_disks in the for-loop, then NULL pointer deference
will not happen again.
2) RCU stuffs are back again, and use kfree_rcu() in linear_add() to
free oldconf memory. Because oldconf may be referenced as mddev->private
in linear_congested(), kfree_rcu() makes sure that its memory will not
be released until no one uses it any more.
Also some code comments are added in this patch, to make this modification
to be easier understandable.
This patch can be applied for kernels since v4.0 after commit:
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| Documentation | ||
| arch | ||
| block | ||
| certs | ||
| crypto | ||
| drivers | ||
| firmware | ||
| fs | ||
| include | ||
| init | ||
| ipc | ||
| kernel | ||
| lib | ||
| mm | ||
| net | ||
| samples | ||
| scripts | ||
| security | ||
| sound | ||
| tools | ||
| usr | ||
| virt | ||
| .cocciconfig | ||
| .get_maintainer.ignore | ||
| .gitattributes | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| .mailmap | ||
| COPYING | ||
| CREDITS | ||
| Kbuild | ||
| Kconfig | ||
| MAINTAINERS | ||
| Makefile | ||
| README | ||
README
Linux kernel ============ This file was moved to Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst Please notice that there are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or ``make pdfdocs``. There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory, several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation. See Documentation/00-INDEX for a list of what is contained in each file. Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.