Re: [PATCH] ring-buffer: Fix crash passing ERR_PTR to kthread_stop()
From: Vincent Donnefort <hidden>
Date: 2026-08-07 16:51:05
Also in:
lkml
On Fri, Aug 07, 2026 at 11:41:46PM +0800, Hui Su wrote:
quoted hunk ↗ jump to hunk
In test_ringbuffer()'s out_free cleanup loop, the check `!rb_threads[cpu]` only catches NULL entries and misses entries that hold an ERR_PTR. rb_threads[] is static, so unassigned slots are NULL. But when kthread_run_on_cpu() fails for a cpu, it stores ERR_PTR(-ENOMEM) (or -EINTR) in rb_threads[cpu] before the creation loop jumps to out_free. That entry is non-NULL, so the old `!ptr` check does not break, and the cleanup proceeds to call kthread_stop() on the ERR_PTR. kthread_stop() then dereferences the bogus pointer, crashing the kernel during the late_initcall self-test. crash logs: BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 000000000000001c Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP NOPTI CPU: 1 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 7.2.0-rc6-dirty #7 PREEMPT(lazy) RIP: 0010:kthread_stop+0x2e/0x220 RBX: fffffffffffffff4 CR2: 000000000000001c Call Trace: <TASK> test_ringbuffer+0x1ec/0x650 do_one_initcall+0x6c/0x2c0 kernel_init_freeable+0x21d/0x420 kernel_init+0x15/0x1c0 ret_from_fork+0x21b/0x320 </TASK> Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception Fixes: 64ed3a049e3e ("ring-buffer: make use of the helper function kthread_run_on_cpu()") Signed-off-by: Hui Su <redacted> --- kernel/trace/ring_buffer.c | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)diff --git a/kernel/trace/ring_buffer.c b/kernel/trace/ring_buffer.c index 8e2485bb3aa8..6af7e36ca526 100644 --- a/kernel/trace/ring_buffer.c +++ b/kernel/trace/ring_buffer.c@@ -8214,7 +8214,7 @@ static __init int test_ringbuffer(void) out_free: for_each_online_cpu(cpu) { - if (!rb_threads[cpu]) + if (IS_ERR_OR_NULL(rb_threads[cpu])) break; kthread_stop(rb_threads[cpu]); }-- 2.43.0
Reviewed-by: Vincent Donnefort <redacted>