Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 10:00:36AM +0800, Ming Lei wrote:

quoted

If Documentation/stable_kernel_rules.txt is the correct doc for stable rule,
looks reporter requirement isn't listed in the file, but the below can be found:

          - No "theoretical race condition" issues, unless an explanation of
         how the race can be exploited is also provided.

so I marked it as -stable because I have explained how the race can be
exploited in reality.

Ok, but as this has been there since when, 2.5, I'll refrain from
marking it this way, as no one has reported a real problem like this
before.

Just to clarify, if I understand correctly, exploited != reproduced. :)

That is, if you have an example of how the race can be exploited by an
unprivileged prankster to make a sysadmin's life miserable, that would
definitely be real problem.  On the other hand, if you have a test case
for a rare race condition that has not appeared in the wild and is not
exploitable, that's very useful (test cases make programming much
easier!) but it doesn't make it qualify for stable.

Hope that helps,
Jonathan