Re: BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 00 - ida_free+0x76/0x140

[Heikki Krogerus <heikki.krogerus@linux.intel.com>]

On Fri, Mar 06, 2020 at 12:33:50AM +0200, Sakari Ailus wrote:
> Hi Brendan,
> 
> On Thu, Mar 05, 2020 at 11:51:20AM -0800, Brendan Higgins wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 5, 2020 at 11:40 AM Brendan Higgins
> > <brendanhiggins@google.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Thu, Mar 5, 2020 at 11:18 AM Andy Shevchenko
> > > <andy.shevchenko@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > +Cc: Sakari
> > > >
> > > > On Thu, Mar 5, 2020 at 6:00 PM Naresh Kamboju <naresh.kamboju@linaro.org> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Regression reported on Linux next 5.6.0-rc4-next-20200305 on x86_64,
> > > > > i386, arm and arm64. The steps to reproduce is running kselftests lib
> > > > > printf.sh test case.
> > > > > Which is doing modprobe operations.
> > > > >
> > > > > BTW, there are few RCU warnings from the boot log.
> > > > > Please refer below link for more details.
> > > > >
> > > > > Steps reproduce by using kselftests,
> > > > >
> > > > >           - lsmod || true
> > > > >           - cd /opt/kselftests/default-in-kernel/lib/
> > > > >           - export PATH=/opt/kselftests/default-in-kernel/kselftest:$PATH
> > > > >           - ./printf.sh || true
> > > > >           - ./bitmap.sh || true
> > > > >           - ./prime_numbers.sh || true
> > > > >           - ./strscpy.sh || true
> > > > >
> > > > > x86_64 kernel BUG dump.
> > > > > + ./printf.sh
> > >
> > > Oops, I am wondering if I broke this with my change "Revert "software
> > > node: Simplify software_node_release() function"":
> > >
> > > https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/next/linux-next.git/commit/?id=d1c19322388d6935b534b494a2c223dd089e30dd
> > >
> > > I am still investigating, will update later.
> > 
> > Okay, yeah, I am pretty sure I caused the breakage. I got an email
> > from kernel test robot a couple days ago that I didn't see:
> > 
> > https://lists.01.org/hyperkitty/list/lkp@lists.01.org/thread/N3ZN5XH7HK24JVEJ5WSQD2SK6YCDRILR/
> > 
> > It shows the same breakage after applying this change.
> > 
> > I am still investigating how my change broke it, nevertheless.
> 
> As nodes in the tree are being removed, the code before the patch that
> "simplified" the software_node_release() function accessed the node's parent
> in its release function.
> 
> And if CONFIG_DEBUG_KOBJECT_RELEASE is defined, the release functions are no
> longer necessarily called in order, leading to referencing released memory.
> Oops!
> 
> So Heikki's patch actually fixed a bug. :-)

Well, I think it just hid the problem. It looks like the core
(lib/kobject.c) allows the parent kobject to be released before the
last child kobject is released. To be honest, that does not sound
right to me...

I think we can workaround this problem by taking reference to the
parent when the child is added, and then releasing it when the child
is released, and in that way be guaranteed that the parent will not
disappear before the child is fully released, but that still does not
feel right. It feels more like the core is not doing it's job to me.
The parent just should not be released before its children.

Either I'm wrong about that, and we still should take the reference on
the parent, or we revert my patch like Brendan proposed and then fix
the core with something like this (warning, I did not even try to
compile that):

diff --git a/lib/kobject.c b/lib/kobject.c
index 83198cb37d8d..ec5774992337 100644
--- a/lib/kobject.c
+++ b/lib/kobject.c
@@ -680,6 +680,12 @@ static void kobject_cleanup(struct kobject *kobj)
                kobject_uevent(kobj, KOBJ_REMOVE);
        }

+       if (t && t->release) {
+               pr_debug("kobject: '%s' (%p): calling ktype release\n",
+                        kobject_name(kobj), kobj);
+               t->release(kobj);
+       }
+
        /* remove from sysfs if the caller did not do it */
        if (kobj->state_in_sysfs) {
                pr_debug("kobject: '%s' (%p): auto cleanup kobject_del\n",
@@ -687,12 +693,6 @@ static void kobject_cleanup(struct kobject *kobj)
                kobject_del(kobj);
        }

-       if (t && t->release) {
-               pr_debug("kobject: '%s' (%p): calling ktype release\n",
-                        kobject_name(kobj), kobj);
-               t->release(kobj);
-       }
-
        /* free name if we allocated it */
        if (name) {
                pr_debug("kobject: '%s': free name\n", name);


thanks,

-- 
heikki